Roachblog

This is a joke, right?

2006-11-17T07:36:00.000-06:00

That has got to be what the Vietnamese are saying to themselves after listening to President Bush say the following while having a nice lakeside lunch near Hanoi and drawing parallels between the Vietnam and Iraq wars:

"It's just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful — and that is an ideology of freedom — to overcome an ideology of hate. (...) We'll succeed unless we quit."

Perhaps the current Vietnamese government is stunned to realize that this man believes that the US should have "stayed the course" in Vietnam and is willing to say so publicly while he is their guest. Perhaps they thought we got rid of Henry Kissinger as an architect of US foreign policy many years ago. Perhaps they thought that the image of this man as a rigid, uncurious ideologue who can never, ever be influenced by anything other than the manufactured reality of his neocon bubble, was just political caricature.

If so, then they are just now learning what we've known for some time. Welcome to reality, George Bush style.

Humor is not always needed to make a point

2006-11-13T11:10:00.000-06:00

I say let the guy retire in peace... perhaps in Germany.

Dell. The best TV for watching FOX

2006-11-10T07:07:00.000-06:00

Presidential product placement is a relatively new phenomenon in American politics. It's too bad that we didn't have Youtube when these great Presidents said things like:

"Speak softly and carry a big Chapstick®"--Theodore Roosevelt

"All we have to fear is fear itself. I manage mine with Tofranil®"--Franklin Roosevelt

"There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, energy and quality products from GNC® cannot cure."--Dwight Eisenhower

Luckily, we have it for George:

Good.

2006-11-09T09:55:00.000-06:00

The House and Senate can start acting like a separate branch of government again. Let's see if they do.

The set up.

2006-11-05T19:11:00.000-06:00

They don't have to win, remember? They just have to be close.

More like FOX than FOX

2006-11-01T21:49:00.001-06:00

CNN has been carrying the Kerry gaffe as its lead story for nearly 48 hours. Kerry isn't running for re-election this year. Kerry is not setting Democratic policy. But for two days, CNN has ignored other stories, like this, and this, and this, and this, so they can keep this one on top.

The executives at CNN have obviously made the decision to bet on Diebold in next week's election.

Plan Nine From Outer Space

2006-10-30T17:48:00.000-06:00

Eight days to go. The GOP is casting about for something, anything at all that will bring their numbers up. In the last few days we've seen a spate of truly vile attack ads-some overtly racist, some accusing Democrats of being pro-child abuse, or pro-rape. We've witnessed an attack on Michael J. Fox for having the bad taste to be public about his hope for a cure to his Parkinson's disease. We've seen "Stay the Course" become "We've Never Been Stay the Course". We've been informed that Iraqis are killing each other and our troops in horrifying numbers because they are interested in our mid-term congressional elections.

And still, the public continues to believe that Democratic control of Congress will result in a safer and more prosperous America. What to do? Remember the GOP election-winning formula: Fear, Smears, and Queers.

The Fear/Iraq/Terror thing is no longer playing well. The Smears have become so outrageous that even Joe Sixpack can't keep a straight face while watching them. The Queer thing lost a lot of momentum with Foleygate. So, what can we look forward to for the last eight days?

More old favorites.

Of course, if it still doesn't look good on election day, the polls for just enough of the critical seats will turn out to be wrong:

Michele Bachmann

2006-10-26T08:53:00.000-05:00

This is the lady who currently holds a slim lead over Patty Wetterling in Minnesota's 6th district race.

Wow.

Kim's Washington Cheerleaders

2006-10-23T13:40:00.000-05:00

Hell, you don't need the Washington Post.

Before North Korea announced it had detonated a nuclear device, some senior officials even said they were quietly rooting for a test, believing that would finally clarify the debate within the administration.

We could have told you this. In fact, 9driver predicted it before the damn explosion.
Via Thinkprogress

The more things change

2006-10-22T15:05:00.000-05:00

Habakkuk was a minor old testament prophet who lived around 700 b.c.. I had a chance to read a bit of his stuff recently, I was surprised at the similarities between the ancient Chaldeans, their leadership, and what we see today:

For, lo, I raise up, that bitter and hasty nation, that marches through the breadth of the earth, to possess dwelling-places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful; their judgment and their dignity come only from themselves. Their horses also are swifter than leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves; and their horsemen press proudly on: yea, their horsemen come from far; they fly as an eagle that hasteth to devour. They come all of them for violence; the set of their faces is as the east wind; and they gather captives as the sand. Yea, he scoffeth at kings, and princes are a derision unto him; he derideth every stronghold; for he heapeth up dust, and taketh it. Then shall he sweep by as a wind, and shall pass over, and be guilty, even he---whose might is his god.

If I were an old testament prophet and was trying to describe 21st century US policy and George Bush, I don't think I could do much better than that.

Riverbend's new post.

2006-10-18T16:23:00.000-05:00

It's good to see that she remains OK enough to post at least occasionally. Her opinion of the horrible Iraqi casualty numbers in the Lancet study is that they are quite reasonable.

Bush's handlers on the other hand, have told him that the scientific sampling methods used to derive this number are hogwash. They use the same arguments to dispute the link between greenhouse gas emissions and global warming. I personally doubt if Bush could recognize the difference between a scientifically valid study and an invalid one, even if it ran up and bit him on the ass.

So, should we tend to believe someone who is in the middle of the carnage, or someone being fed lines inside of his bubble?

Hello? Anybody home?

2006-10-16T22:16:00.000-05:00

The carnage in Iraq is rapidly spiraling even further out of control. The Iraqi government can't stop it. We can't stop it. The US media puts it on page A17. The Bush administration builds the walls of their bunker higher. At this point, the only thing that will possibly work is if a pan-arab coalition goes in and takes over for the totally ineffective US and Iraqi forces.

Yeah, like that will happen.

Meanwhile,

2006-10-13T07:24:00.000-05:00

Staff Sgt. Daniel Isshak
Lance Cpl. Edward M. Garvin
Cpl. Benjamin S. Rosales
Cpl. Fernando D. Robinson
Staff Sgt. James D. Ellis
Spc. Raymond S. Armijo
Spc. Justin R. Jarrett
Spc. Kristofer C. Walker
Pfc. Dean R. Bright
Spc. Timothy R. Burke
Staff Sgt. Christopher O. Moudry
Spc. George R. Obourn Jr
Cpl. Carl W. Johnson II
Cpl. Nicholas A. Arvanitis
Pfc. Shane R. Austin
Sgt. Lawrence L. Parrish
Spec. John E. Wood
Sgt. Brandon S. Asbury
Spec. Timothy A. Fulkerson
Pfc. Phillip B. Williams
Sgt. Julian M. Arechaga
Lance Cpl. Jon E. Bowman
Pfc. Shelby J. Feniello
Lance Cpl. John E. Hale
Lance Cpl. Stephen F. Johnson
Cpl. Bradford H. Payne
Lance Cpl. Derek W. Jones
Lance Cpl. Jeremy S. Sandvick Monroe
Capt. Robert M. Secher

"It's not appeasement to talk to your enemies."

2006-10-12T20:42:00.000-05:00

That recent quote from James Baker is included in this essay by Jimmy Carter, who has more brains in his little finger than the last three Republican administrations combined.

Treason

2006-10-11T22:05:00.000-05:00

Adam Yahiye Gadahn is a total asshat who could no doubt be charged with a few crimes related to terrorist activity, but is he a traitor? Ponder the meaning of Article III, Section 3 of the US Constitution and consider the following list of every single person ever convicted of treason (and not overturned on appeal) in the entire history of the United States (excerpted from Wikipedia):

John Brown
Iva Toguri D'Aquino, "Tokyo Rose"
Governor Thomas Dorr
Mildred Gillars, "Axis Sally"
Hans Max Haupt
Tomoya Kawakita
Two unnamed Whiskey Rebellion participants

That's it. The whole list. And the Bush Justice Department wants to add Adam Fucknut Gadahn, with a million dollar bounty on his head for his appearance in al Qaeda's "We're Gonna Kill You Suckers" video series. Are you scared enough to vote Republican, yet?

Compare and Contrast

2006-10-11T08:47:00.000-05:00

In the run up to the Iraq invasion, the Bush administration was very concerned about Saddam's nuclear program. Not only that, but Iraq reputedly had the means to deliver WMD to the shores of the US.

Do you recall what North Korea was doing during this time?

Holy poop.

2006-10-10T23:55:00.000-05:00

I really want this to be totally wrong. But if it's not, that would be like, two hundred twenty-five 9/11 attacks. Have I mentioned that the Iraqis didn't have anything to do with that?

Oh, by the way...

2006-10-10T08:05:00.000-05:00

There isn't much doubt that the GOP House leadership spent more time worrying about the political consequences of Foley's behavior than about the pages that he was harassing. There isn't much doubt that North Korea is a dangerously unpredictable country that possesses nuclear material, even if they can't quite get it to properly explode. These things have occupied quite a bit of front page real estate and evening news time slots for the last few days.

The good news is that the American public appears to be wising up as to who is responsible for these messes (hint: not Clinton). The bad news is the disappearance of the massive, crushing, central failure of this Administration and its congressional enablers from the front pages. One of the curious phenomena of our media-driven America is that if it isn't in the paper or on the news, then it didn't happen.

Iraq is a long-term event; it doesn't fit into the 24 hour news cycle that we have adapted our attention spans to. The ongoing and slowly increasing carnage that occurs there every single day is no longer enough to merit special mention by the Commercial Media, but make no mistake; in spite of Saddam's murderous habits, these people would not be dying if we had acted more responsibly. At the current rate, ordinary Iraqi moms, dads and kids are dying in numbers that equal our 9/11 death toll every 45 days.

The people of the United States are giving Iraqi citizens, people who had nothing to do with the attacks on our country, the equivalent of eight 9/11's every year. People who don't surf for news on the internet won't be able to tell you how many died in Iraq yesterday, although they can no doubt tell you that Foley is a perv and North Korea is bad. It's nice that NBC has a blog where you can get a feel for the unbelievable horror show that Iraq has become, but how many Americans read blogs buried deep inside Commercial News sites? (Answer: Not many.) We bear a huge and terrible national responsibility for this, and it should be at the forefront of our collective consciousness every single day.

But those who control our national dialog have other ideas.

Fizzle?

2006-10-09T13:07:00.000-05:00

Maybe. There are some interesting comments further down.

Here it comes

2006-10-09T11:52:00.000-05:00

As soon as the President said that the US was "committed to diplomacy" in his speech this morning, you knew what would happen. The rationale for this will be that there's no time to lose. From the standpoint of nuclear weapons research and development that would be nonsense, but from the standpoint of the Bush administration, it's absolutely true.

For these guys, there's no time to lose, and no options left.

Let's talk nukes.

2006-10-09T10:15:00.000-05:00

It now appears that the Bush administration has their figurative mushroom cloud just in time for the fall elections. So far, all of the statements regarding the event have been predictable. Bush is threatening. Everyone else is condemning. North Korea is trumpeting amazing success.

Yawn.

Without getting into possibly classified details about how these things work and their physical characteristics, let me make the following points:

They have no intention of conducting any more tests.
Any significant design change would require a test, so they have one design and a very limited amount of fissile material.
Their one design is almost certainly too big, too heavy and too fragile to mount on a missile.
Their one design is without question too big and too heavy to put into a backpack, or even anything less than a small truck.
A nuclear weapon that can't be delivered is only good for propaganda.

The DPRK is stirring the pot, nothing more. They have had all of this material since the US pulled out of the Agreed Framework. Their device has probably been complete for some time. I can think of only two scenarios where the insane leadership of the DPRK could convert this development into a serious threat:

They load their nuke onto a submarine and sneak it into someone's harbor.
They sell their nuke to a third party, who transports it out of the country to a place where they want a big bang.

Based on the degree of scrutiny that they will be subjected to as a result of their success, I think it very unlikely that they will be able to do either one of these things. China and Russia have both been embarrassed by this; they won't permit this thing to cross their borders. The only way to transport it is by sea. We have the technology and the seapower to detect and prevent that; all it will take is a minimal level of competence from the administration to set up the program.

Um, maybe we have something to worry about, after all.

Told you so.

2006-10-08T22:39:00.000-05:00

It's hard to figure out who's egging who on when two irrational regimes, desperate to hold onto power are throwing feces at each other.

North Korea

2006-10-08T09:00:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, all of North Korea's plutonium laden, spent fuel rods were safely locked away under IAEA seal . That was negotiated under the "Agreed Framework" during the Clinton administration. The tradeoff was that we would help them build light-water reactors for power, which would be quite unsuitable for clandestine weapons programs.

Upon taking office, Bush administration immediately began to pursue a policy of confrontation with the North Koreans, culminating in the collapse of the Agreed Framework after we "discovered" that they were attempting to start a secret uranium enrichment project. Keep in mind that a production scale uranium enrichment operation is a huge undertaking which is impossible to hide and takes many years just to ramp up. There was time to negotiate, to attempt to salvage some of the protections of the Clinton era; but no.

The Bush administration immediatley shut down talks, stopped the reactor projects and withdrew aid. The North Koreans predictably removed the seals from their fuel rods, extracted the plutonium and by most estimates, now have at least several nuclear weapons which are likely to work. Good job, Bush administration.

Now, it is 30 days before a US election that the GOP is likely to lose on a national level and the North Koreans have announced that they would be willing to forgo their first nuclear weapons test, but only if the US is willing to "talk". This is the October Surprise that Karl Rove promised the GOP faithful last month. Keep in mind that everything is political in this administration. Everything. World safety and stability are not part of the equation for these people.

Will they negotiate with the North Koreans and trumpet success in reaching a new Agreed Framework? Or will they rebuff them with strident rhetoric and egg them on to their test, producing a lovely mushroom cloud to use in GOP campaign ads for the last week before the election?

You know what they'll do.

Republican Family Values

2006-10-07T08:37:00.000-05:00

The fifth district race for retiring Representative Martin Sabo's seat has been ugly this year. Keith Ellison, the DFL candidate has been accused of being a scofflaw for paying parking tickets late. He has also been accused of being a dangerous Muslim extremist, because he is black and Muslim and was once associated with the Nation of Islam, which he repudiated long ago.

The most vituperative attacks have come from his GOP opponent, Alan Fine:

"I'm extremely concerned about Keith Ellison, Keith Hakim, Keith X Ellison, Keith Ellison Muhammad. I'm personally offended that this person is a candidate for U.S. Congress. ... He is the follower of a known racist, Louis Farrakhan, who promoted division between the people of our nation, a person who believes that the white man is the anti-Christ, a person who called for the destruction of our nation, a person who believes that Jews are the scourge of the Earth. I'm personally offended as a Jew that we have a candidate like this running for U.S. Congress."

Nice, eh?

Now, it turns out that Fine was arrested in 1995 for hitting his then-wife. The record of that arrest was expunged in 2004, because Fine "just got around to it and did it." Of course, it had nothing to do with his plans to run for political office. His now ex-wife still says that the charge was legit; he hit her, more than once and even while she was pregnant. In another interesting tidbit, there have been FIVE domestic 911 calls to Fine's residence since 1995, so apparently it's a trend not limited to his former wife.

Republicans: happy to tell you how to conduct your life. Just don't look behind their curtain.

Ten Days

2006-10-04T22:50:00.000-05:00

Pfc. Christopher T. Riviere
1st Lt. James N. Lyons
Staff Sgt. Jose A. Lanzarin
Lance Cpl. James Chamroeun
Staff Sgt. Edward C. Reynolds, Jr.
Pfc. Henry Paul
Pfc. Christopher T. Blaney
Cpl. Robert F. Weber
Staff Sgt. Scott E. Nisely
Spc. Kampha B. Sourivong
Petty Officer 2nd Class Michael A. Monsoor
Cpl. Aaron L. Seal
Lance Cpl. Christopher B. Cosgrove III
Sgt. Chase A. Haag
Staff Sgt. Joe A. Narvaez
Sgt. Mario Nelson
Pfc. Satieon V. Greenlee
Pfc. Michael K. Oremus
Capt. Justin D. Peterson
Sgt. Denise A. Lannaman
Sgt. Joseph W. Perry
Spc. Angelo J. Vaccaro
Staff Sgt. Jonathan Rojas
Name Not Released
Name Not Released
Name Not Released
Name Not Released

The ball.

2006-10-04T11:34:00.000-05:00

While the Foley scandal is great fun and may turn out to be the straw that breaks the GOP stranglehold on power, there are other, more important stories out there. The Curious Case of the CIA Briefing That Nobody Seems to Remember is one of them.

There is no question that the briefing occurred.
There is no question that it contained alarming information about imminent attacks inside of the US.
There is no question that Condi Rice, Don Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft all received this briefing during the first half of July, 2001.
There is no question that it alarmed Ashcroft enough to cause him to stop flying on US domestic commercial flights in July 2001, while he refused to give a public reason.
There is no question that Rice, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft have all denied getting the briefing, or if they did get it, they deny that it contained anything interesting enough for them to remember.
There is no question that at least some of the 9-11 Commission members received this same briefing as part of their investigation.
There is no question that no mention of this briefing appeared in the 9-11 Commission's final report.

So, the briefing was important, but not important. It was alarming, but not alarming. Many high-level officials saw it, but no one saw it.

I would sure like to know just exactly what was in that briefing. Mahablog is on this.

Foley

2006-10-04T11:24:00.000-05:00

Sex. It's nice to know that we finally have a GOP scandal that interests the Corporate Media. There's plenty of coverage available for everyone, so the only thing I'll add is that Foley's "overly-friendly" tendencies with pages were known in the GOP-controlled House as early as 1995. The House GOP busily impeached a sitting President for sexual peccadillos while protecting a predatory pervert in their midst. Nice.

Anonymous sources

2006-10-02T20:05:00.000-05:00

This article says that "anonymous sources" are revealing that the 9-11 commission did in fact review the briefing that Tenet gave to Rice. Apparently there were no specifics about the method, timing or location of the impending attack, just a really strong warning of something about to happen. Given her terrible memory, I can understand why this just slipped out of Condi's head; but why did the commission forget all about it....

Until now?

And why did the FBI have better information about the specific nature of the threat; passing it on to John Ashcroft and no one else?

Eventually, the wheels come off.

2006-10-02T08:42:00.000-05:00

Woodward's new book tells us that the Bush administration basically ignored the growing body of intelligence indicating that al Qaeda was getting ready to do something big involving commercial aircraft during the summer of 2001. In it, he recounts a meeting between Condoleeza Rice and George Tenet on July 10, during which Tenet told her of the mounting evidence.

Condi says that she doesn't recall the meeting. Tenet isn't talking, although he is probably Woodward's source. Members of the 9/11 commission are understandably upset that they weren't informed of this meeting during their investigation. Who to believe, then? With the Bush administration, the best thing to do is go back and look for evidence that they are lying...and guess what?

Here it is. Why did John Ashcroft stop flying commercial in July 2001? Was it because there was no evidence of a growing threat? Was it because no meetings had occurred on the subject? I'm sure that no one in the administration will be able to recall. If asked, John Ashcroft won't be able to recall, either.

Such poor memories in the Bush administration.

You Can't Make This Shit Up!

2006-09-18T23:24:00.000-05:00

Don't cha' know it's the gays that make us torture brown skinned people.

From our lovely ~~psychotic nut-jobs~~ all American friends at FreeRepublic.com: (emphasis added)

To: tobyhill
We didn't need "clarifications" to treat Japanese prisoners, even though the Japs attacked us out of the blue and we feared they were planning sabotage on the West Coast. But then, our moral code was higher back then. That was before abortion and porn and gay rights (notice that two of those cultural depravities - porn and gayness - were part of the abu grab mistreatment; our military - the military of MacArthur, Washington, Grant and Jackson - now takes porno pictures of captives. Sick. Apparently we need "clarifications" in Geneva Convention to permit this without the perpetrators being prosecuted.
19 posted on 09/18/2006 8:27:17 PM PDT by churchillbuff Post Reply Private Reply To 15 View Replies Report Abuse

The really sad part is that he is only person on the forum who thinks that torturing people is a bad thing.

Don't Know Much About History...

2006-09-17T22:01:00.000-05:00

Billmon's been reading too much history. Military recruiting through the lens of a 18th century historian:

In the various states of society armies are recruited from very different motives. Barbarians are urged by their love of war; the citizens of a free republic may be prompted by a principle of duty . . . but the timid and luxurious inhabitants of a declining empire must be allured into the service by hopes of profit, or compelled by the dread of punishment.

Click on the link and see the juxtapostions. Unsettling.

This Time It's Personal

2006-09-11T23:32:00.000-05:00

Keith Olberman has quickly become the absolute best television commentator of our time:

Click here.

Someone Who Was There

2006-09-11T08:36:00.000-05:00

Today is September 11th. I will defer to my good friend Eric, who moved north after 9/11/01 and lives a couple of doors down, to comment on the day:

On 9/11/01 I dropped off my wife at the PATH train station at Exchange Place in Jersey City, NJ, right across the bay from lower Manhattan. I kissed her goodbye and she went into the station, I started to drive home (we lived in Bayonne, NJ right next to Jersey City) listening to Howard Stern on the way. I learned of the first airplane hitting from him. By the time I got home and turned on the TV the second plane had hit.

My wife’s train ended in Manhatten at the WTC station. In all of the aftermath news shots of the big hole, the platform she arrived at could be seen half intact.

Let me say now that my wife passed through the Trade Center about 5 to 10 minutes before the first plane hit and she made it to her office in mid-town without any trouble.

Of course, I didn’t know that at the time. To make things really fun, all of the telephone cables connecting NY and NJ relayed through the Trade Center Communication Center, so I couldn’t call her. She had no cell phone. And she was four months pregnant with our daughter.

While I always have lots I want to say, today I will bite my tongue and let this anniversary quietly belong to those who still have the dust in their lungs.

One way or Another

2006-09-08T08:11:00.000-05:00

The demagoguery coming out of the White House as we approach election time is appalling:

"There have been some in the Democratic Party who have argued against the Patriot Act, against the terror surveillance program, against Guantanamo. In other words, there are some people who say that we shouldn't fight the war, we should not detain -- we shouldn't apprehend al Qaeda, we shouldn't detain al Qaeda, we shouldn't question al Qaeda, and we shouldn't listen to al Qaeda. In other words, they're all for winning the war on terror, but they're all against -- they're against providing the tools for winning that war. "
-Tony Snow, WH press conference

There is so much frighteningly wrong with this statement. In the first part:

Who are the "some"?-What parts of the Patriot Act do "some" object to? All of it? One part of it?

What is the terror surveillance program that "some" object to? Legally wiretapping terrorists? Or illegally wiretapping anyone they feel like?

What about Guantanamo? Is it the detention part that "some" object to? Or is it the no trial, no lawyers, no charges, no evidence, locked up forever part that offend "some"?

In the second part:

"Some" either approve of giving up your 4th amendment rights and deliberate violations of FISA, or "some" want us to stop investigating terror plots.

"Some" either approve of secret rendition and torture, or "some" want to let the terrorists go.
"Some" either agree that directly and indirectly killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi and Afghan civilians is the right thing to do, or "some" want us to let the terrorists do whatever they want.

The White House position is clear. You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists. There is no middle ground with these people. Do it our way, or you want us all to die.

The cabal currently occupying power in this country really believe this. Don't expect them to allow control of the Senate or the House to pass to "Some" in November. That is not an acceptable outcome and they have made it clear that they will do whatever they --and only they-- believe is necessary to win the "war on terror". Make no mistake; they see no difference at all between the outcome of the November elections and the outcome of the "war on terror". They are the same thing to these people.

One way or another, they are determined to "win" in November. They have amply demonstrated that they will let nothing stand in their way. Nothing.

The One?

2006-09-05T23:49:00.000-05:00

Olberman may be on the verge of becoming the voice that our place in time and space has been missing.

Maybe it takes a sportscaster to tell it like it is. Olberman has a free lunch waiting for him at the restaurant if he should ever find himself in these parts!

The Bastards. They Were After Valerie, too.

2006-09-05T19:34:00.000-05:00

My reaction to reading this was -- "You've got to be F***ing kidding me!"

It seems that Cheney was not just trying to discredit Joe Wilson after his NYTimes editorial that destroyed the Iraq/yellowcake fibs. Nope, Cheney and the Gang were attempting to pre-empt any criticism from one of the lead undercover CIA officers working on Iraqi WMD when they outed her and tried to smear her motivations:

In 1997 she returned to CIA headquarters and joined the Counterproliferation Division. (About this time, she moved in with Joseph Wilson; they later married.) She was eventually given a choice: North Korea or Iraq. She selected the latter. Come the spring of 2001, she was in the CPD's modest Iraq branch. But that summer--before 9/11--word came down from the brass: We're ramping up on Iraq. Her unit was expanded and renamed the Joint Task Force on Iraq. Within months of 9/11, the JTFI grew to fifty or so employees. Valerie Wilson was placed in charge of its operations group.

Until this point in time, I had assumed that Dick Cheney was reckless and petty in regards to this matter. Now I am not so sure that he is not guilty of some very serious crimes, both domestic and international.

When is cannibalism a Good Thing?

2006-09-03T20:32:00.000-05:00

ANSWER: When the GOP eats its own.

TalkingPointsMemo had this little tidbit about the fissures in Florida's GOP.

It gets even better. The Republican primary candidates for Governor in Florida are getting just a wee bit nasty.

Margaret Hostetter and young Gallagher supporters wave a provocative and revealing sign outside NBC WPTV Channel 5 before 2nd Crist VS Gallagher Debate Monday, August 28th.

Watch the Crist VS Gallagher Debate online at: http://www.wptv.com/ click on middle of page ÂDecision 2006 Florida Governor Debate.

Share the info that people can view this debate and need to know that:

(1) Crist has NO WIFE Â He was only married about 6 months over 25 years ago. Floridians want a First Lady.

(2) Crist has NO KIDS Â He is 50 years old and has no children.

(3) Crist has NO HOME Â He has NEVER owned a home or condo. He rents a 1 bedroom apartment.

If you are a Crist supporter you may get angry, but people need to know and Crist supporters would be wise to reconsider.

What do you suppose these folks are trying to say? What do they mean by "Qualify?"

And to think, these are the folks that stole the Presidency in 2000. If they keep this shit up, the GOP will lose their stranglehold grip on Florida within an election or two. It would be a shame if the Party that Jeb Built is in ashes when he tries to run for Prez.

Neville's Ghost

2006-08-30T21:30:00.000-05:00

What does it say about our society when it takes a former anchor from ESPN's SportsCenter to finally ask if, indeed, our political leadership has no shame?

I cannot do Keith Olberman justice. Seriously. View it for yourself. Click here.

Write Fast.

2006-08-14T17:28:00.000-05:00

Most of the news networks are reporting that both Israel and Hezbollah claim that this tenuous cease fire is a Victory. Good. Victory means that the fighting can stop, right? Both sides win. Both sides stop fighting. Things cool off. Negotiations take place. Diplomacy begins. This is the way hot conflict between very well armed opponents happens. Otherwise, everybody dies.

The cease fire is a good thing. Except that somebody we all know apparently doesn't want it to last. Allow me to explain:

Quite some time ago when I was an inexperienced parent, two of my nephews began to fight over---something. I have no idea today what it was. It was important to them at the time. I was the adult on the scene, and in my wisdom I told them to "work it out", so as to not bother me with their problems. Oops. It took about three minutes for their conflict to escalate to thuds, screams and blood.

I never made that mistake again. After I separated them I dictated the terms of their cease fire and stayed on the scene to make sure things cooled off. Even as inexperienced as I was, I knew better than to tell one that he was the winner and that the other was the loser. That would have guaranteed a replay of the thuds, screams and blood. Such a statement would have been total dumbassery.

That is, unless I wanted them to go at it again while pretending that I didn't.

Bush is clearly attempting to goad Hezbollah into breaking this cease fire before it has a chance to cool things off. He really does want wider war in the middle east, and is doing what he can to make it happen. This is not his fight but he is injecting himself into it in an attempt to escalate the conflict.

We are in deep, deep trouble. This guy is nuts.

Good Thing I'm Bald

2006-08-10T13:03:00.000-05:00

So, I get to the airport at five this morning and after the TSA folks verify that yes, I am a pilot and yes, I am going to take the controls and fly large numbers of people from wherever to wherever today, I have to ditch all of my toothpaste, mouthwash and shampoo. Luckily, they don't insist on making me get rid of the several thousand gallons of jet fuel that I tend to carry with me on these flights.

This annoys me.

So I do what I almost never do and call this special phone number I have and ask to speak to Donald Rumsfeld. Don always knows the real deal with these things:

Me: "Mr. Secretary, why did I just have to dump out my whole toilet kit? I'm in the Midwest working a domestic flight and there are people outside who have been standing in line at Security for two hours. Is this going to make air travel safer?"

DR: "Well, golly gosh, of course it is! You just never know what might be in a shampoo bottle or a makeup case. It could be anthrax or plutonium! Saddam's WMD's have to be somewhere, you know."

Me: " I think the threat that the TSA is worried about is explosive devices, Mr. Secretary. But liquid explosives have been a threat to airliners for years. In fact, the US broke up a major plot to blow up 11 US airliners using this method in 1995. The plotters were al Qaeda and had even set off a test bomb on one flight that killed a passenger. We didn't make passengers in Albuquerque, Atlanta and Albany dump out all of their liquids then, so why are we doing it now?"

DR: " Gee willikers Mr. 9Driver, you sure like to ask questions! Does the TSA know you like to ask so many questions? That plot then was different! The plotters had different names and everything. And they were using contact lens cases and Casio watches! It's not the same thiong at all! Besides, Clinton was president back then and he didn't care about your safety the way we do."

Me: "Mr. Secretary, we've established that these two plots are pretty similar. This latest plot apparently was foiled in Britain and Pakistan. Why are we subjecting Americans who aren't going to or coming from those places to this kind of frenzied, fear inducing treatment? Do we have intelligence that indicates that this kind of attack is being prepared here?"

DR: "Sure, those other plotters were al Qaeda and sure, they were targeting 11 US airliners, but they were way out in the Phillipines. That's a little island way, way far away on the other side of a big ocean. It wasn't close to home. Why, London is practically across the street from Baltimore! Our intelligence is as good as it always is. It tells us the things that we know, and the things that we don't know, and even the things that we know we don't know. But jeepers, you just can't expect it to tell us the things that we don't know we don't know. You know?"

Me: "I'm getting the feeling that this is the beginning of the fear and distraction campaign that the Republicans are going to use for the fall elections, Mr. Secretary. There doesn't seem to be any other reason for this massive overreaction."

DR: "Oh, bosh and piffle! You can never be too careful when it comes to terrorism, especially in an election year! Why, just the other day I was having lunch with Senator Joe. He wasn't careful, and look what happened to him! We'll be working extra, extra hard to keep every single American voter completely safe until after November. And we'll remind them constantly about how safe we're keeping them--you can count on it!"

Me: "Thanks, Mr. Secretary. I've got to go fly now, 'bye."

I'll be glad when November is over.

Fun with quotes.

2006-08-04T16:10:00.000-05:00

"... a year from now, I'll be very surprised if there is not some grand square in Baghdad that is named after President Bush. There is no doubt that, with the exception of a very small number of people close to a vicious reigime, the people of Iraq have been liberated and they understand that they've been liberated. And it is getting easier every day for Iraqis to express that sense of liberation"

Richard Perle 9/22/2003

Well, they're certainly expressing something.

Osamma b'In Vitro

2006-07-22T19:59:00.000-05:00

I find that humor eases the overwhelming urge to punch political leaders in the nose:

The real reason for the veto

2006-07-21T11:00:00.000-05:00

There seems to be widespread failure among mainstream editorial writers and pundits to understand the logic behind President Bush's very first veto. Tony Snow states that the President considers the use of these embryos for research to be murder, although simply discarding them is apparently OK. He then states that it is not illegal to to use them. This logical sequence reveals all we need to know about Bush's intent.

This President has never seen an obscenely bloated spending bill that merited a veto. A new legislative act has never before crossed his desk without his signature. Even when he had no intention of complying with the laws he signed, he signed them anyway and appended "signing statements" indicating his intent to ignore them. He has engaged in this questionably legal manuever 705 times since he took office.

So why would he veto this bill? Because Federal approval of embryonic stem cell research would bolster the argument that these featureless clusters of dividing cells do not yet meet the definition of being human. This is an important consideration for a President whose rapidly shrinking base obviously intends to see Roe v. Wade overturned during his tenure.

The arguments that will certainly be made in front of the Supreme Court within the next several years will include the assertion that human life begins at conception and is therefore entitled to full protection under the law from that moment. This is the logic behind the President's veto. Should the Court accept that argument fully, not only abortion but most forms of birth control would be found to violate that protection.

This veto is not about stem cell research. It is about the future of reproductive rights in this country.

Oh that's right-it's an election year.

2006-06-23T22:02:00.000-05:00

The terror alert should start going to Orange any time now.The last two days have been full of reports about the monumental terror conspiracy of Brother Naz, Brother Pat, Brother Sunni, Brother Naudi, Brother B, Brother Levi and Brother Rot. These dangerous terrorists made the fatal mistake of misidentifying an FBI agent as a representative of al Qaeda.

In their eagerness to destroy freedom and goodness, they talked a lot about blowing things up. Especially the Sears tower. And they wanted boots. And uniforms. And a car. And a camera. And a memory chip for the camera. Oh, and guns and explosives and stuff. The nice man that they thought was from al Qaeda promised to help them out.

After they got their boots and camera, they really got dangerous; they started taking pictures. And they all took oaths of loyalty to al Qaeda, which the FBI agent administered for them. Then they talked some more about blowing things up. Finally, the FBI arrested them before they could destroy us.

Phew, I'm relieved, aren't you? It's good to know that we're being kept safe from all of the really dangerous terrorists out there.

Read the sordid details yourself.

Intelligence.

2006-06-02T14:48:00.000-05:00

The Department of Homeland Security has rated Washington DC as low risk for another terrorist attack. This has kicked up a predictable fuss about the loss of funding for security measures there, which is something I don't really want to get into. I'm not a budget guru, nor am I confident that even an unlimited budget would be spent wisely or effectively. Based on the record of this administration, most of it would probably flow into the pockets of whichever cronies were fed the contracts.

The really mind bending thing about this declaration from the DHS is that they have classified DC as low risk. This hallucination is in the same category as Dick Cheney insisting that Saddam and Osama were in bed together: it runs completely counter to everything we know about al Qaeda. DHS has decided to worry about "critical infrastructure" targets. Al Qaeda has never targeted critical infrastructure. They have always targeted symbols. Additionally, they have always returned to attack symbols that they failed to destroy in earlier attempts.

Was the World Trade Center critical infrastructure? No. Was it a symbol? Yes. Was there a faiiled previous attack? Yes. The time between the two attacks was seven years.

Flight 93's target was maybe the Capitol, or maybe the White House. Are they critical infrastructure? No. Are they symbols? Yes. Did the attack fail? Yes. Seven years will put us just before the 2008 elections.

What a coincidence.

Airlines

2006-05-06T13:28:00.000-05:00

The employees of the various bankrupt passenger airlines continue to lose pensions, take huge pay cuts, and agree to spend as little one week per month in the same city with their families. They're doing all of this in an effort to save their companies and careers. It's admirable. And it won't work. The US passenger airline industry has reached a strange, psychotic place. No one charges anywhere near what the real value of an airline ticket is. Most don't even charge what it costs to provide the service. The employees can't fix this problem no matter how little they are willing to be paid.

The psychosis extends to airline travelers, too. This morning I sat next to a gentleman on a flight who complained continuously about how much fares had gone up recently. He was upset that he couldn't get a round trip ticket from the midwest to LA for less than $280, and that price involved the inconvenience of a stop on the way. I nodded in sympathy and kept my mouth shut. Afterwards, I thought about some research to try to determine what the real value of such a ticket would be. A place to start would be one of the express freight operators, so I went to Fedex.com. Here is what I found:

To send a 200 pound palletized package from the midwest to LAX, round trip, with fuel surcharge included, would cost $1643.48. This is for a 200 pound, inanimate object. It is not your child, mother, husband or lover.

$1643.48

To send your child, mother, husband or lover, with all of their baggage on the same round trip, non-stop with no advance purchase and no Saturday night stay--in other words, the most expensive way to buy a ticket---would cost as little as $440.99, or as much as $809.00, depending on the flights you choose. Let's take the average:

$625.00

One fare is for 200 pounds of dead, inanimate freight. One fare is for living, breathing people that you care about. Explain to me how this makes sense. Tomorrow, we can look at what it would cost to drive your car on the same trip. I'll tell you in advance that the results will be similar.

Dang.

2006-05-01T22:55:00.000-05:00

So, the Mainstream Media has finally started to notice (watch the video-it's great) what has been in their face for the last several years: Valerie Wilson was actually doing some important work when her career was tubed by the White House. This has been banging around the blogosphere for a while, but the first mention of it in the MSM appears to be this letter to the editor from some dork in last week's Star Tribune.

Maybe next week they won't edit out the paragraph describing Bush's complicity in the whole treasonous scheme.

1984

2006-04-24T20:46:00.000-05:00

Back in 1984, I was a junior lieutenant in an ASW squadron on the east coast. It was a good time to be in the military and an especially good time to be in an ASW outfit. The Soviets were still in business back then and were spending rivers of money driving their missile submarines in loiter patterns near our coastlines. Our mission was to keep track of them from the air.

As a junior officer, it was tough to find a meaningful ground job to do; squadrons tend to be officer-heavy and the Navy expects their aviators to not only fly, but also to lead and manage all aspects of squadron operations. One of the jobs I managed to land was Material Control Officer. This was a great job, with a lot of responsibility and a staff of eight enlisted sailors who reported to me via my CPO.

One of the things my shop did was to run the Tool Room and keep track of the squadron’s tools. We had a lot of them, and they wore out at a terrific pace. When something wore out, it needed to be deleted from the inventory and a new item ordered. Sometimes it was a specialty tool, but more often it was something that any hardware store might carry.

One day, I wondered out loud why we couldn’t just go down to the Sears store and pick up Craftsman hand tools, since they were cheaper, higher quality, and easier to get than the tools that we had to order. Plus, they had a “lifetime” guarantee. It turned out that we weren’t authorized to spend our tool money at Sears, because they hadn’t jumped through the EEOC and workplace standards documentation hoops that were required for DoD vendors at that time.

Today, I’m wondering how on earth we got to this place; where our DoD contractors have been permitted to abuse foreign workers and hold them in indentured and abusive servitude in Iraq. 1984 was a good year to be American. It was easy to be proud of your country then. It's not so easy now.

Bush Doctrine - Version 2.3

2006-04-02T11:11:00.000-05:00

The time has come to liberate a country and lead them to the Bush Doctrine (v.2.3) promise of freedom and democracy. In the country in question, the government is backing death squads and secret prisons. Fully half the population has become disenfranchised. Religious and ethnic cleansing are now common place. And, the terrorists abound. (We can't forget the terrorists!)

The country we need to attack is… Iraq.

A more restrained take on the situation is here.

Cheetohs

2006-03-22T08:21:00.000-06:00

I just want to stake my claim to my small contribution the language of the blogosphere.

"Cheeto Stained Fingers" and its subsequent variations was introduced by your's truly.

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 or 4 years ago, I left a snarky comment at the General's site using the phrase. The General quickly co-opted it and has never looked back. Now, just about every comment thread throughout the lefty blog scene with a sophomoric tone brings it up.

Seriously though, seeing a little thing like this weave its way into the culture of the web is an odd feeling. I never thought that my contribution to the political discourse in this country would take the form of a play on an old masturbation joke. Mom would be so proud!

Math

2006-03-21T14:23:00.000-06:00

Atrios looks at Mr. Oxycontin's latest claim about the so-called-liberal-media's bias in covering Iraq. In a nutshell, Mr. Hillbilly Heroin claims that the 204,000 accidental deaths in this country over the last three years are just as newsworthy as the approximately 2300 US fatalities in Iraq.

Atrios points out that there are a lot more people over here than soldiers in Iraq. So, if US soldiers were dying at the same rate as US accidental deaths, how many would have died in the last three years?

88.

Oxycontin must make it hard to do arithmetic.

Homer Simpson Once Said

2006-03-20T18:12:00.000-06:00

"It's funny, so it has to be true!"

In the 1960s Jack Block and his wife and fellow professor Jeanne Block (now deceased) began tracking more than 100 nursery school kids as part of a general study of personality. The kids’ personalities were rated at the time by teachers and assistants who had known them for months. There’s no reason to think political bias skewed the ratings — the investigators were not looking at political orientation back then. Even if they had been, it’s unlikely that 3- and 4-year-olds would have had much idea about their political leanings.

A few decades later, Block followed up with more surveys, looking again at personality, and this time at politics, too. The whiny kids tended to grow up conservative, and turned into rigid young adults who hewed closely to traditional gender roles and were uncomfortable with ambiguity.

The confident kids turned out liberal and were still hanging loose, turning into bright, non-conforming adults with wide interests. The girls were still outgoing, but the young men tended to turn a little introspective.

Block admits in his paper that liberal Berkeley is not representative of the whole country. But within his sample, he says, the results hold. He reasons that insecure kids look for the reassurance provided by tradition and authority, and find it in conservative politics. The more confident kids are eager to explore alternatives to the way things are, and find liberal politics more congenial.

Via Atrios and Suburban Gorilla

Urban Archaeology

2006-03-17T23:10:00.000-06:00

I spent the first 23 years of my life in and around Detroit. The place has always held a heartbreaking grip on how I view several issues from race to mass transit, to urban sprawl, to architecture, to failed dreams and probably just about everything in between.

With this in mind, I have come across what very well may be the coolest all-original one topic blog ever. Detroitblog.org is the mind blowing site of a photographer who "explores" Detroit's abandoned buildings.

He found this: in the scattered debris of Motown Records' old headquarters before it was torn down.

I'm not sure why I just spent three hours reading every inch of his blog from top to bottom. I've never actually done that on any blog before.

Maybe it's because he's posted photos of the old Kresge Building where my grandfather worked.

Maybe it because he wrote about the odd little riverfront trailer park where I helped my friend Mike MacMichael deliver newspapers.

Maybe it's because he posts pictures from the Grande Ballroom where I saw punk rock acts in the '80s and my dad saw jazz greats in the '40s and '50s.

Or maybe it's just because he sees the same madness that characterizes the once proud city - the madness that now makes the place painfully intriguing, but almost assuredly will prevent me from ever calling Detroit home again.

David Mamet is a Cartoonist?

2006-03-15T21:25:00.000-06:00

As I tell my 6 year old - We learn new things everyday!

Faith Based Consumption.

2006-03-13T20:14:00.000-06:00

If I lived in Texas, I know who I'd be voting for!

DALLAS - An independent candidate for Texas governor rode in a St. Patrick's Day parade car Saturday with his trademark black hat and burning cigar — plus a beer in his hand, an apparent violation of the state's open container law.

Kinky Friedman's spokeswoman acknowledged that he drank from a can of Guinness handed to him. Photographs taken by The Dallas Morning News showed Friedman, who wasn't driving, holding the beer and appearing to take a drink.

State law prohibits opened alcoholic beverages in the passenger area of a motor vehicle. The Class C misdemeanor carries a maximum fine of $500.

Dallas police didn't cite Friedman, and Lt. Rick Watson said Friedman can't be ticketed after the fact because it wasn't witnessed by an officer.

"Guinness is the drink that kept the Irish from taking over the world. It would be unthinkable not to have a Guinness during a St. Patrick's Day parade. In fact, it would be spiritually wrong," Friedman said in a statement issued by spokeswoman Laura Stromberg.

Crocodile Shoes

2006-03-12T08:21:00.000-06:00

W and Saddam used to get their $1200 handmade Italian crocodile shoes from the same renowned cobbler, Vito Antioli.

Now we know they had something else in common. Incompetence.

Ever vigilant about coups and fearful of revolt, Mr. Hussein was deeply distrustful of his own commanders and soldiers, the documents show.

He made crucial decisions himself, relied on his sons for military counsel and imposed security measures that had the effect of hobbling his forces. He did that in several ways:

¶The Iraqi dictator was so secretive and kept information so compartmentalized that his top military leaders were stunned when he told them three months before the war that he had no weapons of mass destruction, and they were demoralized because they had counted on hidden stocks of poison gas or germ weapons for the nation's defense.

¶He put a general widely viewed as an incompetent drunkard in charge of the Special Republican Guard, entrusted to protect the capital, primarily because he was considered loyal.

¶Mr. Hussein micromanaged the war, not allowing commanders to move troops without permission from Baghdad and blocking communications among military leaders.

If Law Schools are the Goose, then Boy Scouts are the Gander

2006-03-12T07:50:00.000-06:00

This week's Supreme Court ruling that overturned military recruiting bans at various law schools was based on a very simple principle - If you take government money, you have to play by the government's rules. I don't like the military's Don't Ask - Don't Tell policy, but I respect the argument behind the ruling. It is exactly this principle of the "power of the purse" that forced many colleges to stop racial and religious discrimination in the past few decades.

What goes for the Federal Government also goes for local and state government. The city of Berkeley California bans discrimination based on a persons religious beliefs and/or sexual orientation. Based on this, Berkeley stopped giving free services to the Boy Scouts a few years back. The California Supreme Court has unanimously sided with the city:

SAN FRANCISCO - In a unanimous decision against a division of the Boy Scouts,
the California Supreme Court ruled Thursday that groups receiving government subsidies may be required to pledge compliance with anti-bias policies - including those that protect atheists and homosexuals.

The decision, handed down against the Berkeley Sea Scouts, was a blow to the national Scouting organization, which in past landmark rulings had been assured the legal right to exclude boys who are gay or don't believe in God.

Thursday's ruling did not take away that right. But it allowed local governments to make bias costly - in this case, by withdrawing free berthing privileges at the Berkeley municipal marina, worth thousands of dollars a year to the Scouting group.

9driver, Grampa and I were all Boy Scouts. Grampa was even an Eagle Scout and still occasionally volunteers in the troop of one of his grandsons. But the facts are that the Scouts discriminate against certain kids. Plain and simple.

It is unfortunate that an organization that offers so much potential to kids has managed to alienate itself based upon an outdated sense of morality. Scouting will continue its long, slow slide into irrelevance if the Boy Scouts of America doesn't change its tune.

Confucius Through the Looking Glass

2006-03-06T18:56:00.000-06:00

Roachblog has been dormant for a few months. Since 9driver and I last posted things have become even more surreal. We have definitely traveled farther through the looking glass than I ever suspected possible.

Spying on Americans without a warrant and with no judicial or congressional oversight is proclaimed to be the patriotic thing to do.

Civil War in Iraq is supposedly a creation of the media.

For that matter, the American media and Democrats are supposedly the reason that Iraqis blow themselves up trying to kill their Islamist rivals.

Two new avowed right-to-lifers are sitting on the SCOTUS after declaring during their respective hearings that an abortion case was purely hypothetical. Now, within weeks of Alito's confirmation, North Dakota has passed a bill designed specifically to overturn Roe v Wade.

Our military censors Al Franken's web site from being viewed by troops but allows Rush Limbaugh's and yet, almost 4 out of 5 soldiers in Iraq say they want us to "redeploy" out of Iraq within a year.

Congressman Murtha, a Democrat, as well as neo-con icon William Kristol, call for such a withdrawal but only Murtha is called a traitor and a coward.

One of the top GOP operatives of the past decade has pleaded guilty to bribing congressmen and is linked to a mob hit in Florida, but somehow this is a "bipartisan" scandal.

The US decided to "get tough" with Iran's relatively moderate leadership a couple years back and now they have been replaced with hardcore Mullahs who want the bomb and aren't afraid of W's or Bolton's bluster.

Hamas is now the Government in Palestine and our "friends" in the region have told Condi that she can take her request to cut off funding for the Palestinian Authority and stuff it.

It has taken a the political faux pas of letting a foreign state owned company operate dozens of American port terminals to finally get the subject of port security on the American Public's radar.And the list goes on.

oh, and 9driver's commercial airline career is in the hands of a bankruptcy judge.

And I am getting into the fray of local politics after being attacked in the comments of a few local blogs by an insane city councilor.

It's enough to make me drink cheap beer.

As the old curse said, "May you live in interesting times."

Keep it simple.

2005-12-18T01:56:00.000-06:00

The talking heads will manage to completely obscure what the President admitted to:

He illegally authorized wiretaps that he didn't think he could obtain through legal channels.

That's it. That's what he did, and he admitted it because his handlers knew he was caught. Now the spin game begins. Here's what he said today:

"(I did it) to intercept the international communications of people with known links to al Qaeda and related terrorist organizations."

Uh huh. The FISA court wouldn't have authorized a wiretap for that? Even three days retroactively? All in secret? Which was perfectly legal-if he had asked?

If this makes sense to you, please explain it to me. Personally, I suspect that after his brief flirtation with the truth, he's gone back to what he knows best: he's lying his ass off.

Fallujah.

2005-11-18T01:23:00.000-06:00

River has a couple of new posts. Here is a link to the one that talks about Fallujah, which happened right after * was re- (sort of) elected. Maybe all, or even most of the men, women and children who were burnt to a crisp by white phosphorus were enemy combatants.

But I doubt it. Watch the video, if you can stomach it.

He didn't pay attention in Sunday school

2005-11-13T23:24:00.000-06:00

Very sad. I wonder if God will be able to keep a straight face as He welcomes him into heaven?

How about that?

2005-11-03T09:55:00.000-06:00

Glorious Leader must be pretty worried about his poll numbers these days. We've captured yet another Very Important al Qaeda Leader. Of course, we've captured these folks many times in the past, too--always, it seems, when the american public needs to be distracted from what's going on behind the curtain. I wonder how many more Very Important al Qaeda Leaders we're going to capture over the next three years, and how much safer that will make us?

Unholy Water

2005-11-01T09:48:00.000-06:00

Here's another timely example of the compassion of the religious right. not exactly Good Samaritans, are they?

Sex and Death

2005-10-31T22:42:00.000-06:00

Just in case you had any doubts about the priorities of folks who worry about fornication, it seems they are very invested in the idea of Consequences for Sex. It's very important to the moral fiber of our country that there be Consequences. That's why sex education is bad; it makes people less likely to suffer Consequences. That's why access to birth control is bad. Unwanted pregnancies and the resultant unwanted children are Consequences.

That unwanted and neglected children are Consequences is much more important than that they are unwanted and neglected. In fact, the less unwanted and neglected they are, the less of a Consequence they become. That's why those same folks tend to oppose funding for programs aimed to help these kids. But the concept doesn't stop there.

They also consider death to be an appropriate Consequence for sex. Their opposition to HIV prevention and treatment programs here and around the world is well known. Now we have a new example. Preventable death from cervical cancer is apparently a desirable Consequence, according to these very same, er, people. Wow.

Happy Halloween.

Surprised?

2005-10-11T13:07:00.000-05:00

Not me. Isn't it funny how this always seems to happen when Glorious Leader's numbers need a little boost?

Remember Pat Tillman?

2005-09-27T07:39:00.000-05:00

It turns out that in spite of his enlistment and service in Afghanistan, he thought our involvement in Iraq was nuts and that Bush was a boob. Here's a pretty detailed account of the latest "official" version of his killing. If I were trying to cover up a fragging, my story might sound a lot like this one.

Of course, Army Rangers would never do something like that to a fellow soldier who disagreed with the President. Right?

Apologies to Rogers and Hammerstein

2005-09-13T18:52:00.000-05:00

You have to be taught to hate and fear
You have to be taught from year to year
It has to be drummed in your dear little ear
You have to be carefully taught!
-from the musical South Pacific

Los Angeles, CA (PRWEB) September 13, 2005 - – The tragedy of Hurricane Katrina has exposed an ugly truth about liberals, and parents need to teach this to their kids, according to the author of a controversial upcoming children"s book.

Katharine DeBrecht — the author of the soon-to-be-released "Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed" (Kids Ahead; hardcover: $15.95; ISBN 0976726904) — dismisses the notion that parents should not talk to their young kids about politics. If anything, she claims, the behavior of liberals following the flooding of New Orleans shows that parents with traditional values need to take a hands-on approach to making sure their kids aren"t bombarded by left-wing messages.

"Liberals don"t hesitate in pushing their extremist ideology," says DeBrecht, the mother of three and a co-captain of her state"s Security Moms for Bush. "Their actions in the wake of the tragedy in New Orleans shows this only too well."

In support of her point, DeBrecht asserts that as soon as New Orleans" levees burst liberals set out to exploit the tragedy....

Back again.

2005-09-11T23:25:00.000-05:00

I needed to take a break from the blog. My career as an airline pilot is heading for the toilet, and I am still trying to find a way to integrate that. On a positive note, Riverbend is posting again:

E. looked at me wide-eyed that day and asked the inevitable question,
“How long do you think before they bomb us?”

“But it wasn’t us. It can’t be us…” I rationalized.

“It doesn’t matter. It’s all they need.”

Good stuff. Go read it. On Katrina: I have no time or sympathy for the Global Warming faction. Hurricanes happen. Some years are really bad. This is one. Check back with me in 200 years and we'll see if there's a trend. The government response is another matter. It sucked. Chertoff and Brown should be tarred and feathered. That brings me to the point of this latest post, which is that I no longer have time to write well reasoned, erudite commentary on the political scene. In the future, I will be quite brief and to the point. That's my life these days:

George Will says that if black people weren't so stupid and didn't fuck so much, New Orleans would have been just fine. Thanks for that insight, George.

Traverse City

2005-07-31T21:35:00.000-05:00

Traverse City in July is about as nice as you can expect a town to be. I came in this afternoon, hoping to snag a last-minute ticket to the US opening of Broken Flowers, Bill Murray's latest movie, which is playing tonight at the Traverse City Film Festival (Sold out, oh well). The TC FilmFest is new this year, bringing lots of new Indie film to a beautiful northern Michigan locale. It is really nice here. Really.

In addition to the paid movies, there has been a nightly free showing in the park on the bayfront, which brings me to the real point of this post. The other night, they showed "Jaws". There were 6,000 people in the park, all enjoying a Traverse City summer evening, when a sailboat cruised by and obstructed the screen for a few moments. Its sails were advertising the Traverse Bay Freedom Film Festival, which was created as an alternative and protest to the TC FilmFest. Strange that there would be an "alternative" to a festival that just started this year, you say?

No. The TC FilmFest was partly organized and funded by Michael Moore, who likes this area, too. He wanted to put an independent film festival here. Not a political film festival. Not an Anti-American film festival. Just good movies, not made by major studios. But the political right sees this very successful community venture as an Attack On America. To quote one of the organizers of the alternative festival:

"People are fed up and tired with the extreme left-wing radical fringe -- America haters, family haters, Christian haters."

Here's a list of the films of the TC film festival:

Mad Hot Ballroom
The Ax
Land of Plenty
My Summer of Love
Czech Dream
Mondovino
Grizzly Man
The Woodsman
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
The Edukators
A Good Woman
Tarnation
The Baxter
The Assassination of Richard Nixon
Downfall
Me and You and Everone We Know
Les Miserables
Gunner Palace
Talent Given Us
11 de Septembre
Italian for Beginners
Broken Flowers

Here's a list of what's going on at the Freedom Film festival:

Confronting Iraq (Introduction by Lt. Commander Joe Cooper)
Echoes of Innocence (Introduction by Morgan Brittany)
Michael Moore Hates America
In The Face of Evil: Reagan's War in Word and Deed
America's Heart and Soul
Charlotte's Web
On The Waterfront (Introduction by Cheryl Felicia Rhoads)
Top Gun
Raiders of the Lost Ark

One of these festivals seems to have a partisan and political agenda, and one doesn't. One of these festivals seems to be a Texas financed but absurd parody of a celebration of independent art, and one doesn't. I think the folks here in mostly Republican Traverse City have begun to catch on to the big lie.

So much of right wing reality in the 21st century world revolves around the eternal Attack On America. This is the message that they have pounded out for years on talk radio and FoxNews: anything that doesn't fit a conservative, christian, 1957 snapshot of Eisenhower-era american utopia is an attack on the very fabric of our nation. One of Karl Rove's huge insights as he managed Bush's political rise over the last 15 years has been that many people respond to a perceived attack on American Values, even when the premise is not only false, but ridiculous. They can't help it. They love this country and will always err on the side of defending it, just in case the charges are true.

Once they figure out they've been lied to for so long, about so many things, they won't be happy. Reality has a way of --sooner or later-- overcoming bullshit. And it's happening to the Bush administration and its most ardent supporters right now...

Mr. Bolton is a liar.

2005-07-28T22:50:00.000-05:00

Is anyone surprised by this?

Mr. Roberts is a liar.

2005-07-25T10:39:00.000-05:00

But what else could we expect from a Bush Supreme Court nominee?

Who has more Influence....

2005-07-24T23:35:00.000-05:00

... Owen Wilson or the President of the United States?

DENVER (AP) - Some military veterans and law enforcement officials are angry about a Web site promoting Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn's comedy "Wedding Crashers."

To win the affections of attractive bridesmaids in the movie, two fun-loving partiers pretend to be Purple Heart recipients.

New Line Cinema's movie Web site includes a fake, paper Purple Heart to cut out, with the spoof: "Carrying a Purple Heart in your jacket guarantees you attention, admiration and plenty of free booze."

"I challenge the producer of that movie to go to Walter Reed Hospital and walk through the ward and see if he still wants to print out a fake Purple Heart," said Thomas Cottone, Jr., a special agent with the FBI who enforces a federal law that prohibits wearing, manufacturing, buying, selling or trading a Medal of Honor.

"Talk to some of these people who don't have legs anymore and see how funny they think that movie is."

Hey buddy. Before you go off half-cocked on a stupid movie, why don't you have a chat with these comedians.

It strikes me that when the AWOL President's party mocks the Purple Heart at his own nominating convention it is slightly more worthy of scrutiny than a cheezy film promotion.

Baton Rouge

2005-07-17T23:28:00.000-05:00

We flew in after dark, due to getting the snot beat out of us by the 1800 or so thunderstorms that finally got tired of the heat and humidity and blossomed like giant, lightning filled popcorn over the eastern half of the country today. Baton Rouge isn't as fun as New Orleans. This is the deep South. The GED, Grandma's 32nd birthday was last week South. Being the capital of Louisiana takes a back seat to its identity as a refinery town. We flew over a couple of blowoff torches just a mile from runway 13 that I was pretty sure would cook us if we were much lower. It reminded me of the hell world that Anakin Skywalker gets fried on in the latest Star Wars film.

We stay on the freeway. Normally, I would be annoyed at being stuck next to an Interstate, but this seems to be about as good as it gets here. Outside my hotel window is one of those jumbotron rotating billboards. It has ads for various businesses that I won't be patronizing during my 15 hour stay, but there's another ad, too. It says:

I'm for W, how about you?

accompanied by a picture of Bush. The picture changes each time the ad comes up in the rotation. Sometimes it shows Bush at Ground zero. Sometimes it shows Bush speaking in front of a huge cross. Sometimes it just shows the cross. It reminds me of the billboard for Dr. TJ Eckleburg in the Great Gatsby.

I'll be happy to check out.

Simple.

2005-07-13T07:11:00.000-05:00

"We also want to send a clear message to the political 'operatives' responsible for 'outing' Mrs. Wilson. Such action was treacherous, if not treasonous...Such action has allowed the less attractive aspects of politics to supersede the Government's responsibility to protect the citizens of this nation and the individuals who serve in difficult, dangerous covert capacities. This has set a sickening precedent. The 'senior Administration officials' who did this have warned all U.S. intelligence officers and the intelligence community that any one individual may be compromised if providing information or factual analysis the White House does not like."

--Shared statement of disloyal and America-hating Republican CIA agents Larry Johnson, Michael Grimaldi and Brent Cavan, in October 2003, to the Senate Democratic Policy Committee. Thanks to AlterNet.

A good question.

2005-07-12T22:13:00.000-05:00

Who told Karl about Valerie Plame? He ran the political side of the White House when he leaked the information--not the military/intelligence side. The answer to that question may lead straight to the Oval Office. And in a normal world, that would bring this corrupt and criminal presidency down.

Notice how I'm not holding my breath. The real journalists, with investigative assets, sources and time to do this job the way it should be done, won't do it. Too hard, too expensive, too much potential downside. Better to cover it as a "me-too" kind of story until it gets pushed down by the news cycle.

Despite being caught red-handed, Rove will not be indicted, and he'll keep his job. Bush can't function without him. Lying and criminal behavior aren't punished in Bushworld, because such behavior is endorsed as acceptable means to an end. Bush is a Management By Objective kind of guy. As long as you get him the war, the power and the paybacks that he wants, your methods are of no concern to him. Anyone who advises him that his objectives may not be the right ones for the country is removed. Ask Colin Powell.

The only real offense, the one that will get you in deep trouble, is disloyalty. Everyone who comes in contact with Bush knows that. Ask the wrong question, say the wrong thing, get branded as not-a-team-player, and your Washington career is over.

Karl is very loyal. Nearly all of the GOP members of Congress are very loyal. Porter Goss is very loyal, in spite of the wicked America-hating traitors that he supervises at the CIA. This will all blow over, and George and Karl will have a good laugh about it some day, after Jeb's inauguration. Just watch.

Yes, he really said it.

2005-07-08T08:21:00.000-05:00

Take your pick: Monumentally stupid, or living in a total fantasy land. Or both.

Bush said the London attacks were a reminder of the "evil" of the Sept. 11 attacks and underscored that the United States and its allies were fighting a "global war on terror."

"We will stay on the offense, fighting the terrorists abroad so we do not have to face them at home," Bush said.

I'm sure our allies, the British, are comforted to know that attacks in London don't count as "home". What a moron.

Well. This sucks.

2005-07-07T09:07:00.000-05:00

There are a few dozen dead men, women and children in London this morning who can testify to the effectiveness of their government's anti-terror policies over the last several years. London Mayor, Ken Livingstone said it well:

"This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful, it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners.
"Black and white, Muslim and Christian, Hindus and Jews, young and old. It was an indiscriminate attempt to slaughter, irrespective of any considerations for age, class, religion whatever."

This isn't the last deranged act of mass murder we will witness over the next few years. And I very much doubt that the bombings will be limited to the other side of the Atlantic. This attack and the ones that will follow give the lie to the "Flypaper theory" that Bush has lately been trying to revive as a justification for the war in Iraq.

This despicable attack shows that we have not been made safer. In fact, we have been made less safe by the misguided idiocy of this Administration. But don't expect any consequences or repercussions for the architects of our current War On Terror. There won't be any. The consequences will ultimately be borne by you, me, and all those who have already died.

If you think that I'm being harsh, read the idiocy for yourself:

Q Scott, how concerned is the administration about the potential for Iraq to become a sort of training ground for Islamic extremists who may go back to their home countries and use these techniques to destabilize their governments? There's a new report on that recently.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, let me mention a couple things. As the President has said for some time now, Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism. Wherever you stood before the decision to go into Iraq, I think we can all recognize that the terrorists have made it a central front in the war on terrorism. That's why, as the President said earlier today, we are fighting the terrorists in Iraq so that we don't have to fight them here at home. And that's where things are. And that's why the terrorists understand how high the stakes are. We understand how high the stakes are. And that's why it's so important that we succeed in Iraq, because when we succeed in Iraq and Afghanistan, that will be -- those will be major blows to the terrorists and their ideology that they seek to spread.

Q The report suggested that there's concern that Egyptians, Jordanians and others will go back to their home countries, using the techniques they've learned in Iraq to destabilize those countries.

MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I don't know what your question is.

Q Are you concerned about that? Do you think there's potential for that?

MR. McCLELLAN: Iraq is a central front in the war on terrorism. In terms of what's your question on it, I think you're making the assumption that these individuals would just be sitting around sipping tea, as Secretary Rice likes to refer to in her previous comments. So I don't know what your question is regarding that.

Q The training and the hosting --

MR. McCLELLAN: These are dangerous individuals that are operating in Iraq, and we're on the offensive, going after them, working with Iraqi security forces to defeat them in Iraq, so that -- we're fighting them there, so that we don't have to fight them here. This is all part of the war on terrorism, and that's why we're going after them and seeking to bring them to justice.

Q Just following up on that question, you said at the outset of that, the terrorists have made it a central front in the war on terrorism. I thought it was a central front in the war on terrorism before we invaded.

MR. McCLELLAN: It is. It's part of the war on terrorism, yes.

Q It was.

MR. McCLELLAN: No, it is.

Q It is now --

MR. McCLELLAN: Both.

Q Was it prior to --

MR. McCLELLAN: Both. It's part of the war on terrorism, David.

Expect more of this quality of leadership. It's the best they can do. And we're all going to get to pay for it.

June.

2005-07-01T18:33:00.000-05:00

It's been a little more than a month since Memorial Day and another national holiday is fast approaching.I'll be back in a few days. I thought it might be a little soon to post another list, but after seeing it, I realize that it won't be practical to wait until it's longer. It's already tempting to just skim over the names, there are so many of them. Read them. And while you do, think about the dangerous alternate reality that exists in the White House.

06/30/05 Mercer, Chad
"Our mission in Iraq is clear. We're hunting down the terrorists."
06/28/05 Carrillo, T. J.
06/28/05 Hall Jr., Robert E.
06/28/05 Hornedo, Mann
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/28/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/27/05 Coutu, Matthew S.
06/27/05 Shepard, Steven E.
06/27/05 Mariotti, Keith R.
06/26/05 Kaufman, Charles A.
06/24/05 Pineda, Carlos
"We will succeed in Iraq, just like we did in Afghanistan."
06/23/05 Phelps, Christopher W.
06/23/05 Powell, Chad W.
06/23/05 Charette, Holly A.
06/23/05 Muy, Veashna
06/23/05 NAME NOT RELEASED YET
06/23/05 Tackett, Joseph M.
06/23/05 Valdez, Ramona M.
06/23/05 Clark, Regina R.
06/22/05 Duplantier II, Arnold
06/21/05 Idalski, Nicholas R.
06/21/05 Vaughn, Brian A.
06/21/05 Stewart, James D.
06/21/05 Hoskins, Christopher L.
06/20/05 Kilpatrick, Christopher R.
"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency."
06/18/05 Harris, Noah
06/18/05 Long, William A.
06/18/05 Crumpler, Adam J.
06/17/05 McNulty, Michael L.
06/17/05 Horrigan, Robert M.
06/16/05 Cometa, Anthony S.
06/16/05 Heldt, Erik R.
06/16/05 Maloney, John W.
06/15/05 Trovillion, Tyler S.
06/15/05 Whitley, Dion M.
06/15/05 Maynard, Chad B.
06/15/05 Baez, Cesar O.
06/15/05 Flores, Jonathan R.
06/15/05 Jaime, Jesse
06/14/05 Hayes, Michael Ray
06/14/05 Klinger, Joshua P.
06/14/05 Clemons, Nathan B.
06/14/05 Jones, Anthony G.
06/13/05 Kinslow, Anthony D.
06/13/05 Mattek Jr., John J.
06/13/05 Kuhns Jr., Larry R.
“I would never claim that the exact nature of this insurgency was understood at the time that we went to war.”
06/11/05 Arnold Sr., Larry R.
06/11/05 Prince, Neil A.
06/11/05 Byers, Casey
06/11/05 Lapinski, Stanley J.
06/11/05 Lee Sr., Terrance D.
06/10/05 Castillo, Mario Alberto
06/10/05 Kilpela, Andrew J.
06/09/05 Birch, Dustin V.
06/09/05 Keeling, Thomas O.
06/09/05 Edwards, Mark O.
06/09/05 Chavez, Daniel
06/09/05 Seymour, Devon Paul
06/09/05 Squires, Brad D.
06/09/05 Murray, David Joseph
06/08/05 Arizola Jr., Roberto
06/08/05 Allen, Louis E.
06/08/05 Esposito, Phillip T.
06/08/05 Fasnacht, Michael J.
06/08/05 Tucker, Marc Lucas
06/08/05 Kashmer, Douglas E.
06/07/05 Burri, Eric T.
06/07/05 Crowe, Terrence K.
"Somebody said, well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam. There's nothing farther from the truth."
06/06/05 Smith, Jonathan L.
06/06/05 Romines, Brian M.
06/06/05 Mininger, Robert T.
06/05/05 Ulbrich, Brian Scott "Scotty"
06/05/05 French, Carrie L.
06/05/05 Poelman, Eric J.
06/05/05 Vasquez, Justin L.
06/05/05 Westhusing, Theodore S.
06/03/05 Villar, Linda J.
06/03/05 Mendoza, Antonio
06/01/05 Edmundson, Phillip C.
06/01/05 Case, Virgil R.
06/01/05 Niedermeier, Louis E.
05/31/05 Langmack, Steven M.
05/31/05 Ramos, Miguel A.
05/30/05 Downs, William
05/30/05 Fresques, Jeremy
05/30/05 Crate, Casey
05/30/05 Starr, Jeffrey B.
05/30/05 Argel, Derek
05/29/05 Cortes III, Victor M.
05/28/05 Sayles, Phillip N.
05/28/05 Smart, Albert E.
05/28/05 Barnhill, Michael S.
"Because of the sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, two terror regimes are gone forever, freedom is on the march, and America is more secure."

Even less newsworthy.

2005-06-30T07:56:00.000-05:00

We've established that the deaths of female soldiers in Iraq isn't as newsworthy as a missing girl in Aruba. The deaths of male soldiers are non-existent. Here's an article from last year about Matthew Coutu, a University of Maine ROTC graduate who was killed in action on Monday:

"There was no doubt in our minds he was going to be our number one cadet."

There is exactly one newspaper (registration to get past front page) in the entire country that thought Matthew's death was noteworthy. The Camden Herald, near his former hometown of Rockport, thought it was worth 45 words or so.

What a very strange war we're fighting. The President talks of "sacrifice", but offers tax cuts. The dead come home quietly and discreetly--no photographs allowed. The papers that cover their deaths almost seem embarrassed to be doing so. Shhhh. It's important to maintain the illusion that these are anonymous "troops". They have no mothers, fathers, friends or teachers.

It's much easier to support the sacrifice of "troops" than the deaths of our best and brightest young men and women. For a war that even the President can't settle on a reason for. And that he doesn't know how to get out of.

Have a happy Fourth of July.

The speech.

2005-06-28T21:21:00.000-05:00

Hmmm. How to begin? Should I rail at the weasel words:

"Today Iraq has more than 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions."

Or at his refusal to take responsibility for screwing up the post-invasion plan:

"If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job."

But what's the point? I guess the main point is that this speech showed no change. No new insights. No willingness to admit that this war requires a new and effective way of thinking about the "War on Terror". Let's do something more fun. How about a word count?

Terror, or Terrorists, or Al Qaida-----------------25 mentions

9-11, Defending America from evil------------------9 mentions

Weapons of Mass Destruction----------------------0 mentions

1700 dead US troops-------------------------------0 mentions

Regret for starting an unnecessary war--Sorry, what was I thinking?

Is it possible to underestimate the taste or intelligence of a Dittohead?

2005-06-28T15:37:00.000-05:00

Apparently not.

Foot dragging?

2005-06-27T23:34:00.000-05:00

I was looking at the DoD press releases this evening and came upon the name of another of the women killed in the June 23 convoy bombing. Regina Clark.

The curious thing is that this story came out on KOMO local news on Saturday, but the DoD didn't release her name until this afternoon or evening. I know that they wait until the family has been notified, but it seems obvious that her family knew on Saturday, since her son provided the photo used in the news story. So why the delay?

The identities of some of the others killed in that attack were also released today:

Ramona M. Valdez
Veashna Muy
Chad Powell

Remember them, too.

Sunday. More missing white woman coverage.

2005-06-26T11:10:00.000-05:00

I won't even bother to post the pages. As usual, the other women who died this week in very public circumstances aren't getting any coverage. To remedy this, here's a little article I found about Holly Charette.

Mail is a mission for one Marine

CAMP BLUE DIAMOND, AR RAMADI, Iraq (May 3, 2005) -- For Marines and Sailors here, there may be nothing sweeter than the sound of mail call. One Marine with Headquarters Battalion makes it her mission to deliver those delightful words.

Lance Cpl. Holly Charette, a 21-year-old from Cranston, R.I. recently deployed here from Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, N.C. She is one of the thousands of 2d Marine Division Marines serving in the Al Anbar Province as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Charette's job allows her to meet many of the people in Headquarters Battalion, where she works. Her part in the Global War on Terrorism is something different than most Marines. And that's not all that sets her apart from her fellow service members.

"I never really thought too hard about being a mail person, but it's really an important job and people depend on me," said Charette. "There are a lot of stresses involved, but it's really worth it at the end of the day."....

Of course, the story doesn't have a happy ending. Holly died on Thursday in a suicide bomb attack on her convoy. Holly, I wish I could give your picture and story wider circulation.

Update: I see Atrios has posted a link to another blogger who writes a nice tribute to Holly. Better looking blog, too.

Semper Fi, Holly.

Scary thoughts......

2005-06-26T00:09:00.000-05:00

There has been quite a bit of clamor suggesting that Karl Rove is taking a much more public role this term. His whole "Liberals want our soldiers to die" schpiel was supposedly part of this whole new campaign to fire up the GOP base and reopen the partisan chasm which several GOP and independent types have begun to slip into.

But why Rove? There is a bigger issue in play here than just momentum.

Is it about the Supreme Court or agenda? Do they think that it will be easier to go "Nuclear" with a rabid right wing nut-case nominee or ram through a few more giveaways for the uber-wealthy if the Democrats are pissed? Maybe.

But I just had a very disturbing thought.

What if Rove's more public face has something to do with Rove's future? Is it possible that Rove might actually be contemplating a position of some sort? Elected perhaps? (They'd vote for him in his home state of Texas.)

What about an appointed post? And to be completely paranoid.....

... didn't they just take Dick Cheney to the hospital, *again*.

Hey you! Yeah you!

2005-06-23T22:55:00.000-05:00

The next time you crawl out of your hole at the White House to say:

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers ... Has there ever been a more revealing moment this year? Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals."

Please say it to my face, you ratf*cking little coward.

It's American, right?

2005-06-22T23:19:00.000-05:00

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Bom biddy Bom biddy Bom biddy Bom...

2005-06-21T00:16:00.000-05:00

What's that sound? Sorta like drums:

"... The Syrian people deserve to have the same kind of hopes and aspirations for a free future that are now spreading in places like Iraq and Lebanon and that there is hopeful here in Egypt. And the Syrians have a responsibility not to support terrorist groups like Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which is headquartered in Damascus, as saying that it will not abide by the agreement that it made with Mahmoud Abbas. It should stop letting its territory be used for insurgents to blow up innocent Iraqis.

The Syrians have gotten themselves in a position where they are helping those who would frustrate the aspirations of the Lebanese people, of the Iraqi people and of the Palestinian people..."

I'm sure I've heard that sound before. What could it be? Well, whatever it is, you read it here first.

Our good friend Dick.

2005-06-20T12:27:00.000-05:00

June 13, 2005:

"Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday he doesn't believe revelations about the treatment of prisoners at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay have become an image problem for the United States and that the facility should not be shut down.

"Those who most urgently advocate that we shut down Guantanamo probably don't agree with our policy anyway," the vice president said after presenting the Gerald R. Ford Foundation journalism awards at the National Press Club..."

June 17, 2005:

"A subsidiary of Houston-based Halliburton has been awarded a $30 million contract to build an improved 220-bed prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Pentagon announced..."

Some people might tell you that Cheney severed his financial ties with Halliburton when he took office. They would be wrong.

Business as usual in Bushworld.

Tell me something I don't know.

2005-06-18T08:58:00.000-05:00

The Republicans are better than the Democrats at lies, spin and propaganda.

Duh.

Well, that was weird.

2005-06-16T23:50:00.000-05:00

I haven't watched "Beauty and the Beast" for a long time. As far as Disney products go, it's about as good as they get. Part of it is the hand drawn animation. In 1991, when it was released, computer generated graphics were experimental. They appear in the background of a couple of scenes, but Beast was mostly hand drawn. It's a quality you don't see much today.

Another reason it's so good is the music. It was scored and librettoed by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman. These two guys were an unbelievable team. Who knows what they would have come up with if Howard hadn't died of AIDS in late 1991. Howard was the lyricist. He was a genius. I was reminded of this as I watched the movie this afternoon with my kids.

Beauty and the Beast is not a political movie. It is a fairy tale. It is a cautionary story with a moral or two, as most fairy tales are. One moral is that things that are pretty on the outside may not be pretty on the inside. Another moral is the converse: that things that are ugly or difficult at first glance may in fact be worth a great deal, if you give them a chance to prove themselves.

There is another lesson, too.

Let me digress a bit. It will come together soon, I promise: I love Star Wars. I saw episode III in Flint, Michigan when I had a little time between flights. The dialogue was horrible. The acting was even worse. I loved it.

The right wing yammerheads spent a fair amount of time complaining at Episode III's opening, that it was George Lucas's political anti-Bush statement. This whining was mostly justified by taking quotes from the mostly crappy dialogue. One of the quotes that the right found most objectionable was this:

“If you’re not with me, you’re my enemy”

This was thought to be a direct slam on Bush's post 9-11 speeech, when he made virtually the same statement to the world, thereby putting the entire planet on notice that the US was officially pissed off and unlikely to play nice anymore. Of course, the fact is that this phrase has been used often throughout history. Usually by very poor leaders, who bring calamity on their people..

This historical fact wasn't lost on Howard Ashman. Although he never lived to see George Bush elected governor of Texas, much less President of the United States, he knew what this phrase and this attitude meant when it was voiced by political leadership: Gaston, the puerile, self absorbed and charismatic villain of "Beauty and the Beast" utters these same words during the "Mob Song", as he whips the villagers into a frenzy to attack the Beast.

In spite of evidence that said Beast is not a threat.

Sound familiar?

Like I said, it was very weird.

Ya think?

2005-06-15T22:04:00.000-05:00

"Was race a factor in Aruba arrests?"

So, now what?

2005-06-13T22:34:00.000-05:00

Michael Jackson has been found not guilty. I know this because the headlines are huge, on every US news network. The headlines are bigger than they were when we rolled into Baghdad. They're bigger than the Runaway Bride, or the missing Aruba girl. The networks think this is big, big news. They should know, since they run on money, what the American public really, really cares about.

I guess this is what we care about. This is who we are as a nation. I've always thought that things like this were a sideshow, a distraction from the real issues of the day, that sooner or later, the American people would demand better from their news and information providers. I always hoped that eventually the charlatans, thieves and bullies of the right would be exposed, naked for everyone to see just how morally and intellectually bankrupt they are.

And then we would move on, having learned to pay a bit more attention to those who propose to lead us. A wiser nation, a more cautious and skeptical nation. The current conundrum of Iraq doesn't have a good solution. It doesn't. It should be a profound lesson to us. It should scare the crap out of us, this thing that has been done in our name. We should be aggressively searching for a way to shake this burning bag of dogshit that Geoge W. Bush left us off of our shoe. This issue should be dominating the national conversation. There is nothing more important to us as a nation than this single issue and all of its consquences.

It needs to be dealt with, now. There needs to be an honest appraisal of how this happened, and there needs to be a reckoning, with real analysis, real conclusions and real consequences. We are poorer. We are less safe. We have taken our vengeance for the 9-11 dead dozens of times over, almost entirely from people who weren't even involved. The world has long suspected, and now knows, that our rationale for the Iraq war was a load of crap. It was fabricated, and now everybody knows it. The proof is there for all to see. And the world is watching to see what we will do.

What we'll do is to look for missing pretty white girls. Peek into movie star and pop star bedrooms. Watch scripted and rehearsed reality shows. Complain about gas prices. Watch our jobs wither slowly away.

And sooner or later, we will watch, shocked and horrified, without really understanding why, when the towers fall again.

Grampa's Questions

2005-06-12T14:52:00.000-05:00

Guest post from the eldest Roach:

For as long as I can remember, I guess I have always had a slightly different view of life than most people. In retrospect I guess my different view of life in my younger years often crossed swords with conventional wisdom, usually leaving me on the losing end of an argument. Perhaps the best example I can give concerns a high school senior year writing assignment in an English class. The teacher said to read the assigned book and turn in a paper describing our thoughts. I read the book and turned in my paper. Shortly thereafter I was summoned to the teacher’s desk to explain why my paper only contained my name in the top right hand corner. My answer did not go well, “I read the book and didn't think there was anything in it worth writing about.”

Both the teacher and my mother were horrified. Perhaps my mother, even more than the teacher. My explanation was I had followed the instructions to the letter: no thoughts, no words needed. If the objective was to write 500 or 1000 words about the book, the assignment should have been put in those terms. This argument was lost on my teacher and my parents. However, I did learn from the experience. People don't always mean what they say or say what they mean. As a result, as I have aged, I seem to have either more questions or fewer answers.

For example: I wonder if 9/11 had not happened, would we have our troops engaged in Iraq today? It is becoming clearer each passing day that the hard line policies of the Bush administration bear no relationship to terrorist attacks against our nation. Rather, the current policies seem almost to guarantee that we are less safe and possibly more likely to future attack by terrorist forces. I for one feel much less secure today than I have felt at any time since 9/11. How secure do you feel?

Another example: I wonder how long it will take for the Bush administration’s War on Terror to become an even greater disaster than Vietnam, and for the exact same reason? While never acknowledged by most, Vietnam was basically a war for the hearts and minds of the people of Vietnam. We lost the war early on but pursued it for far too many years while trying to prove that it was about defeating communism. It is becoming clearer with each new disclosure that Iraq, and possibly the whole Middle East, is not about a terrorist threat to our country. It is a war for the hearts and minds of people and we are rapidly putting ourselves at risk by being there and betting on the wrong side. The underlying drum beat of anti-Muslim rhetoric and actions is no way to win friends and influence people.

Homeland security raises questions for me. We have spent close to $176 billion to fight a war of choice in Iraq. Iraq did not threaten us despite the claims made of such a threat. Nor did they attack us. Their armed forces were safely bottled up by a relatively small and inexpensive force sanctioned by the UN. We chose the timing and the plan of attack. It was our war, not Adam’s. I wonder, how much of the Homeland Security that the Bush administration says we can't afford could we buy with the $176 billion? Could we better protect at least some of our most vulnerable ports? Could we begin to devise a better system of air-transport security? One that really works, providing real protection without just burdening air travelers? And, thinking about Homeland Security, I also must wonder what we have bought with the money we have spent? While touring the East Coast last spring, we stopped in Washington D.C. I was amazed at the amount of construction underway and the security in place. Each of the buildings on the mall open to the general public were fully staffed and patrolled by security guards examining each purse and back pack. Around the mall the Capitol Building, the White House and the Washington Memorial were all fenced off while new construction was completed. I have no idea of the cost of all this, but I assume that all of it was financed by funds designated as “Homeland Security.” Three and a half years after 9/11 and we are still securing the Capitol. The same is true of the massive security and construction in Philadelphia around the Liberty Bell. The Bush administration has claimed that they have thwarted and prevented terrorist attacks against the homeland. I would feel more personally secure if they would be a little more specific. I know enough about politics and public relation to feel quite strongly that if they had any real successes, we would not have to wait for them to be leaked by a new Deep Throat.

Another question cuts to the heart of the War on Terror. This war began with the attacks on our country by an identified group. In the ensuing four years (more time than it took us to recover from Pearl Harbor and defeat Germany, Italy and Japan) we have spent almost $176 billion in Iraq. I wonder, if even a small portion of that sum had been spent in Afghanistan in the year following 9/11, would we have captured Osoma? If shock and awe had been launched against the Taliban rather than against a state that had complied with UN demands to disarm despite the Bush administrations claims to the contrary, would terrorists be more disorganized today? Would we still be having more terrorist groups organizing each day, each posing a new threat to our national security? Would we have sustained the casualties, both among our troops and Iraqi civilians? And would our armed forces be a higher levels of strength to provide a stronger defense should it be needed in the future?

As a youngster, I think I felt that questions, usually had answers. As I progress through my mature years, I find that questions are often more likely to lead to more questions, because people don't always mean what they say or say what they mean.

Sunday news roundup

2005-06-12T09:44:00.000-05:00

The news networks are really scrambling to keep up with all of the fast breaking stories of international importance today:

That pretty white girl?
In Aruba?
She's still missing.

We have a different picture of the pretty missing white girl.
Our reporters have worked all week to find it.
We are very proud.

The other networks are showing their poor news judgment by running pictures of the pretty missing white girl.
We will scoop them by showing this picture of a telephone pole with yellow ribbons and flowers on it.
Doesn't it just choke you up?

What the hell is this? Prisoners in Gitmo? The President lying?
What is wrong with you people at MSNBC? Don't you know there's a pretty white girl missing?

This cheesy looking white guy beat up on this dissipated black guy.
This is important because black people tend to scare us, so it's always nice to see one get beat up by an Irish nobody.

Oh, and that pretty white girl is missing. We still think that black guy we showed last week did it.

He looks you straight in the eye

2005-06-12T00:00:00.000-05:00

And he lies. To you, me and the rest of the American people. He does it every day. In public. About nearly everything. Even when he doesn't have to.

"...Bush said that "federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted."

Those statistics have been used repeatedly by Bush and other administration officials, including Gonzales and his predecessor, John D. Ashcroft, to characterize the government's efforts against terrorism.

An analysis of the Justice Department's own list of terrorism prosecutions by The Washington Post shows that 39 people — not 200, as officials have implied — were convicted of crimes related to terrorism or national security.

Most of the others were convicted of relatively minor crimes such as making false statements and violating immigration law — and had nothing to do with terrorism, the analysis shows. For the entire list, the median sentence was just 11 months."

Experience has taught him that lying has no consequences. After all, he's still President, and even if someone in the media notices, it's only a few days before another pretty white girl goes missing.

And then everything's OK again.

Game, set, match.

2005-06-11T21:20:00.000-05:00

I never would have thought that the evidence leading to the impeachment and conviction of Geoge W. Bush would have to come from Britain, but there it is. Combined with the Downing Street memo and the testimony of Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke and others, we have a rapidly growing, steaming pile of evidence.

George W. Bush determined that the US would invade and occupy Iraq long before he or his advisors had come up with a valid or legal reason to do so. All of the false and inaccurate "intelligence" that led up to the war was driven by this policy. The intel was inaccurate and fabricated because the White House demanded it and would not accept anything else.

It was a gross abuse of executive power. It was a violation of US law. It was a betrayal of Bush's Oath of Office. And he has been caught by unnamed Brits who are doing what nobody on this side of the Atlantic has the balls to do; namely, to tell the secrets that need to be told and provide the documentation to back it up.

There is certainly the same kind of evidence available here, but everyone with access to it is too frightened of the consequences to come forward. With the GOP domination of every branch of government, they're probably smart to lay low. A whistleblower in the US would end up in prison instead of being a hero, and the Bush administration would remain uninvestigated and in power.

I guess it's up to the Brits to do for us what we can no longer do for ourselves.

And the winner is...

2005-06-10T11:42:00.000-05:00

Syria!

When we first invaded Iraq, there is little doubt that Bush believed that once we had collected our candy and flowers, it would be time to move on to one of its neighbors to bestow our gift of Democracy and Freedom on yet another backward, yet potentially grateful middle eastern country.

Subsequent events would have caused most people with normal intelligence and no obvious psychiatric problems to re-evaluate that idea. But not our War President, oh, no. In case you've forgotten what the early rumblings of the drums of war sound like, they sound like this:

"...He called on Syria to comply with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1559 and remove all of its intelligence operatives from Lebanon.

"We're concerned that those intelligence operatives are interfering in Lebanon's internal affairs," McClellan said.

A senior State Department official told CNN that Washington has "credible information" that Syrian operatives plan to try to assassinate senior Lebanese politicians...

A U.N. team sent last month to verify the pullout said it "concluded, to the best of its ability, that no Syrian military intelligence personnel remain in known locations or in military uniform.

Ah, those good old familiar phrases: "United Nations Security Council Resolution" and "Washington has "credible information"", followed up by the ever popular, "A U.N. team sent last month to verify..."

I think I know how this song goes...

Montana's national guard.

2005-06-09T23:14:00.000-05:00

Montana is a beautiful place. Lots of mountains, trout streams, trees; you can see practically forever out there. Except during fire season. All of that pine and spruce on steep slopes makes for the world's largest potential bonfire; the terrain not only helps the fire, but it makes it awfully tough to get firefighters in to put it out.

Montana's national guard has always been a vital part of the personnel and equipment needed to keep these fires under control. That's what a state's national guard is for: to help out their state when they're needed. To deploy overseas to fight in an elective war for the federal government wasn't really what the Founders had in mind for the state militias:

"...Until Sept. 11, 2001, such state missions were the most visible role played by the National Guard,... but that has changed as about 45 percent of the US soldiers in Iraq are Guardsmen, a much greater percentage than in Vietnam or the 1991 Gulf War.

Andrew Krepinevich, director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, said governors may have to adjust to having fewer Guardsmen available for tasks such as stacking sandbags and putting out forest fires.

''I don't anticipate that the governor, or any governor, is going to get relief any time soon because the insurgency in Iraq doesn't seem to be abating and because the Guard is having increasing difficulty recruiting people, so the Guard may get smaller even as the demands on it grow," he said..."(Boston Globe, registration required)

45 percent. That's even more than Def's prediction of 43 percent last year. So the new national guard recruiting campaign should be...What?

Join the National Guard and get all of the combat with none of the benefits of the regular Army! You can use obsolete equipment-and have a higher chance of death or injury than your regular Army buddies! Lose your stateside job! Have your medical benefits cut off 90 days after you return--even if you've been wounded!

I would expect those recruiting and retention rates to remain in the crapper for quite some time. I hope Montana gets lots of rain this summer....

Is the press awakening? Nah.

2005-06-08T21:48:00.000-05:00

Michael Jackson has failed to keep the Downing Street memo out of the US media. So has the Runaway Bride. And the missing girl in Aruba. And Saddam's underpants. The Memo is slowly starting to appear on page A18 of some of the larger papers, now. USAToday sheepishly came up with a lame excuse for not covering it before this:

They said they couldn't find a copy of it.

Bush and Blair even had to answer a question about it in public. It's a good thing they weren't under oath. The media management folks in the Administration will now make it their top priority to make sure that never happens.

The White House is getting anxious; so it must be time to play the fear card--again. Luckily, there are lots of spooky looking Muslims available to arrest; it'll be interesting to see how many of these folks will ever be tried. In the meantime, I smell an Orange Alert in the cards for summer vacation. The threat will be...something that will generate a lot of ink, but not hurt tourism or spending too much.

If that doesn't work, I'm sure the media and the WH will come up with yet another distraction.

The great compromiser.

2005-06-07T23:46:00.000-05:00

CNN describes Blair and Bush's proposal for increased aid to Africa thusly:

"...In a compromise, Bush pledged an additional $674 million for "humanitarian emergencies" in Africa..."

But it seems that this really isn't a compromise after all:

"...The expected promise falls far short of Mr Blair's hopes for a long-term US commitment to help get Africa's economy back on its feet, but will allow him to claim some progress from his visit to the White House for two hours of talks.

In other words, Tony the Poodle really, really needed some kind of positive press opportunity with George, and this was the best he could do. It turns out that the "additional" money isn't actually added, anyway. It's just a bookkeeping shift.

But that wouldn't make such a good headline, would it?