Fun With Conservapedia!
Cubism is a type of painting (school of art) in which normal shapes of people or other subjects are painted in geometic forms.
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February 28, 2007
St. John
John McCain will officially enter the presidential race — his second run after a bitter loss to George W. Bush in 2000 — with a formal announcement in early April.
I'm all a-tingle.
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The Tooth Fairy...
...is as real as health care for all:
Twelve-year-old Deamonte Driver died of a toothache Sunday.A routine, $80 tooth extraction might have saved him.
If his mother had been insured.
If his family had not lost its Medicaid.
If Medicaid dentists weren't so hard to find.
If his mother hadn't been focused on getting a dentist for his brother, who had six rotted teeth.
By the time Deamonte's own aching tooth got any attention, the bacteria from the abscess had spread to his brain, doctors said. After two operations and more than six weeks of hospital care, the Prince George's County boy died.
Yeah, I know this has been all over the Blogosphere since this morning but the mere idea that something like this could happen in the World's Richest Nation™ beggars the imagination.
Three-quarters of a billion dollars for war and we don't have $80 to pull a tooth.
God bless America.
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Here We Go Again
In a replay of 2000 the NYT's Maureen Dowd selectively edits an interview with Al Gore in order to make him look bad.
It looks like MoDo is sharpening her claws in case Gore decides to run. I can't figure out what her problem is; did Gore run over her puppy or something? Abandon her on a date? Or is Dowd just the High School Queen Bitch of the pundit class?
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And A Thousand Wingnut Heads Explode
Once a Marine, always a Marine. That pretty much sums up the life of retired Sgt. Eric Alva, who was sworn into the Marine Corps at 19, stationed in Somalia and Japan and lost his right leg when he stepped on a land mine on March 21, 2003, the first day of Operation Iraqi Freedom.As the war's first injured soldier, Alva was an instant celebrity. He was on "Oprah." President Bush awarded him the Purple Heart. Donald Rumsfeld visited. And strangers in Alva's native San Antonio still insist on paying for his dinner at Chili's. Last fall Alva, 36, contacted the Human Rights Campaign, the gay rights group, and asked to be involved in its lobbying effort. Today he'll stand alongside Rep. Martin Meehan (D-Mass.) when he introduces a bill to repeal the military's "Don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay, lesbian and bisexual military personnel.
It goes without saying that Alva's heroism and sacrifice mean nothing because he's TEH GAY!
Meanwhile, Jonah Goldberg rips open another bag of Cheetoh's™.
[Via Aravosis.]
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Vile Sub-Human
VA Secretary Jim Nicholson:
WOODRUFF: You have mental disorders — 73,000; diseases of nervous system — 61,000; symtpoms, signs of ill-defined conditions — 7,000; diseases of musculoskeletal system — 87,000. These are numbers beyond the 23,000.NICHOLSON: A lot of them come in for dental problems, others come in for a lot of the normal things that people have. We’re providing their healthcare. Some I suppose are because of their service over there. But they weren’t evacuated for that.
WOODRUFF: But they got some kind of injury, some kind of problem because of the war.
NICHOLSON: That’s possible, yes.
"That's possible, yes."
Everyone associated with this administration ought to be chucked into prison for the rest of their lives.
Video at link if you can stomach it.
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Incisive Analysis
Deep thoughts from the Daily Scaife:
That Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth," a political screed on global warming, won an Oscar for "best documentary feature" shows how the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences knows the meaning of neither "documentary" nor "science."
Yes, that's the entire entry.
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Costs
The WaPo's Robert Samuelson:
To be sure, the war's costs have been huge. Since September 2001, Congress has provided $503 billion for Iraq, Afghanistan and related activities, says the Congressional Budget Office. The administration's request for fiscal 2007 (ending in September) and fiscal 2008 would bring the total to $746 billion. Iraq represents about 70 percent of that. By contrast, my original column put the cost of an Iraq war at up to $80 billion. That was based on the cost then of the war in Afghanistan ($10 billion), the cost of the Persian Gulf War ($61 billion) and the expectation that another invasion would involve fewer troops (it did).
This reminds me of former White House economic adviser Larry Lindsay:
When White House economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey stumbled off message in September 2002 with his prediction that war could cost $100 billion to $200 billion, the administration flew into crisis mode. Budget Director Mitch Daniels was trotted out to label the estimate "very, very high." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz opined -- in testimony to Congress, no less -- that reconstruction would cost virtually nothing in light of Iraq's promising oil revenues. Daniels proffered an estimate in the $50 billion to $60 billion range, substantially less than the $80 billion inflation-adjusted cost of the Persian Gulf War. Lindsey, famously, was soon after fired -- for his troublesome cost estimates and, reportedly, the President's annoyance at his poor personal fitness habits.
Ah, yes, for the innocent days of 2002-2003 when everything was about to come up roses (flowers and sweets!) and those of us who said "hey, wait a minute" were at best ignored and called "traitors" at worst. Happily, those people learned from their mistakes.
Right?
RIGHT!?
(And I had forgotten about George's disgust with Lindsay's "poor personal fitness habits." Our president is a loon, y'know.)
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Diplomacy!?
The United States agreed yesterday to join high-level talks with Iran and Syria on the future of Iraq, an abrupt shift in policy that opens the door to diplomatic dealings the White House had shunned in recent months despite mounting criticism.[...]
The first meeting, at the ambassadorial level, will be held next month. Then Rice will sit down at the table with the foreign ministers from Damascus and Tehran at a second meeting in April elsewhere in the region, possibly in Istanbul.
Field Marshal von Rumsfeld, since tossed overboard, infamously said, "we don't do diplomacy." But that was then.
But one source told me that the resistance – from the Pentagon, Blair and even Democrats in Congress – appears to be having an effect on Bush’s decision-making. This source said he believed Bush had planned to launch an attack on Iran, possibly as early as this week, but was getting “weak knees.”
If this is true it's worth noting that Delusional Dick is overseas and thus not able to whisper into George's ear. Maybe he'll stay gone.
As Churchill said, to jaw-jaw is always better than to war-war.
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Wednesday Boot
Well well well, this week Max is feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. Given that there's a lot of invading and occupying to do he's sad that our allies - especially Perfidious Albion - just don't have that martial spirit:
TONY BLAIR'S decision to withdraw 1,600 troops from Iraq is understandable. The prime minister had to make a difficult decision about where to allocate Britain's scarce resources, and he decided, reasonably enough, that the top priority was to send reinforcements to Afghanistan, where 5,500 British troops are struggling to hold back a Taliban onslaught.The tragedy is that he had to rob Peter to pay Paul because Britain can't maintain 7,000 troops in Iraq and 7,000 in Afghanistan. Those are hardly huge numbers for a country of 60 million with the fifth-largest national economy in the world. Yet even as Britain has continued to play a leading role in world affairs, it has allowed its defenses to molder.
[...]
Even worse hit is the Royal Navy, which is at its smallest size since the 1500s. Now, British newspapers report, of the remaining 44 warships, at least 13 and possibly as many as 19 will be mothballed. If these cuts go through, Britain's fleet will be about the same size as those of Indonesia and Turkey and smaller than that of its age-old rival, France.
Y'see, Max, the UK is no longer an empire. They don't need a huge military. Unless Argentina invades the Falkland Islands again it's unlikely the Brits will go to war except out of some misguided loyalty to the US.
This shortfall has serious repercussions not only for those countries but for the United States. With about 165,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq and more on the way, we are seriously overstretched ourselves. We need as much help as we can get, but there isn't much more that our allies could do, even if they wanted to.[...]
Unless the other NATO members are willing to step up their spending — and what are the odds of that? — there is scant chance that their gripes about American unilateralism will ever be rectified. We act alone, or almost alone, not out of choice but out of necessity.
Our armed forces are "seriously overstretched" because of one man's daddy issues. That's a job for a psychologist not the Royal Army. And the complaints about American unilateralism have more to do with our imperial ambitions than with "necessity."
But shoulders slumping and a great weight on his mind Max soldiers on alone...so alone....
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Oh Yeah, This'll Happen
Prince Charles suggested Tuesday on a visit to the United Arab Emirates that banning McDonald's fast food was crucial for improving people's diets, a British news agency reported.Charles made the comments while visiting the Imperial College London Diabetes Center in Abu Dhabi for the launch of a public health campaign, The Press Association reported.
"Have you got anywhere with McDonald's? Have you tried getting it banned? That's the key," Charles was quoted as asking one of the center's nutritionists.
However, this does prove that centuries of inbreeding damages one's judgment.
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And We Paid How Much For These Things?
At least $125 million per:
ROBERTS: Twenty five years from development to deployment, the F-22 Raptor is the most advanced fighting machine in the air. But it was no match for a computer glitch that left six of them high above the Pacific Ocean, deaf, dumb and blind as they headed to their first deployment. So what happened? We turn to a man who's at home in the cockpit, Retired Air Force Major General Don Shepperd. Don, let me set the scene. These F-22s, eight of them, were headed from Hickam Air Force base in Hawaii to an Air Force base in Japan. They were approaching the international date line, pick it up from there.SHEPPERD: You got it right, John. You want everything to go right with your frontline fighter, $125, $135 million to copy. The F-22 Raptor is our frontline fighter, air defense, air superiority. It also can drop bombs. It is stealthy. It's fast and you want it all to go right on your first deployment to the Pacific and it didn't. At the international date line, whoops, all systems dumped and when I say all systems, I mean all systems, their navigation, part of their communications, their fuel systems. They were -- they could have been in real trouble. They were with their tankers. The tankers - they tried to reset their systems, couldn't get them reset. The tankers brought them back to Hawaii. This could have been real serious. It certainly could have been real serious if the weather had been bad. It turned out OK. It was fixed in 48 hours. It was a computer glitch in the millions of lines of code, somebody made an error in a couple lines of the code and everything goes.
[...]
SHEPPERD: You would have been in real trouble in the middle of combat. The good thing is that we found this out. Any time -- before, you know, before we get into combat with an airplane like this. Any time you introduce a new airplane, you are going to find glitches and you are going to find things that go wrong. It happens in our civilian airliners. You just don't hear much about it but these things absolutely happen. And luckily this time we found out about it before combat. We got it fixed with tiger teams in about 48 hours and the airplanes were flying again, completed their deployment. But this could have been real serious in combat.
The international date line caused their computers to crash. What, were the fighters running Windows 95™?
Yet no doubt defense contractors got rich.
And that's what's important.
[Via Lefarkins.]
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February 27, 2007
Jackass
Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-CT) said today that he is upset that critics have been questioning the administration’s intelligence on Iran, calling the reaction “unwarranted.” Lieberman said the “danger point” learned from the criticism is that the media and politicians reacted with “suspicion.” “I wouldn’t start with suspicion,” Lieberman said
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Ready Or Not
Rushed by President Bush's decision to reinforce Baghdad with thousands more U.S. troops, two Army combat brigades are skipping their usual session at the Army's premier training range in California and instead are making final preparations at their home bases.[...]
Army officials say the two brigades will be as ready as any others that deploy to Iraq, even though they will not have the benefit of training in counterinsurgency tactics at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., which has been outfitted to simulate conditions in Iraq for units that are heading there on yearlong tours.
Note that second paragraph.
[Via Think Progress.]
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Knowing Your Friends
The stock selloff worsened near midday Tuesday as reports of slumping stocks in China and Europe and a steep decline in durable goods orders raised worries that the recent rally may be tapped out.News that Vice President Dick Cheney was the apparent target in a Taliban suicide bombing attack in Afghanistan added to the morning concerns.
So Delusional Dick comes nowhere even close to getting blowed-up and and Wall Street goes into a panic.
Of course, they know that without Dick they lose some power (and profits - CEO's might not be able to afford that second Gulfstream IV). Certainly this doesn't faze them:
Karzai's office said 23 people were killed, including 20 Afghan workers at the base. Another 20 people were injured, it said.NATO's International Security Assistance Force said initial reports were that three people were killed, including a U.S. soldier, an American contractor and a South Korean soldier. U.S. officials indicated they planned to update that death toll.
That, alone, wouldn't have threatened profits so it isn't important.
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BushCo™ At Work
Russian roulette with our food:
Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.That's not all that's dropping at the FDA in terms of food safety. The analysis also shows:
•There are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues.
•Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency's own statistics.
Apparently, we're fighting salmonella over there so we don't have to fight here.
Or something.
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KO
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Wishes For A Speedy Recovery
Steve Gilliard is going in for for open heart surgery.
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Remember Afghanistan?
Delusional Dick not blown up in Afghanistan.
Less importantly, more than a dozen killed and dozens more wounded.
Maybe we should call Cheney "Dick of Death."
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George Breaks Military
The Charirman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff:
Strained by the demands of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is a significant risk that the U.S. military won't be able to quickly and fully respond to yet another crisis, according to a new report to Congress.The assessment, done by the nation's top military officer, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, represents a worsening from a year ago, when that risk was rated as moderate.
[...]
Gates delivered Pace's assessment to Congress, along with a six-page report on steps the Pentagon is taking to address the problem — including new efforts to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps, and requests for more money to repair and replace equipment. On Monday, the Pentagon released most of Gates' report, except for a few sections that were classified as secret.
One of the ways to increase the size of the services is to recruit criminals yet "gays need not apply."
Good plan. (<-sarcasm.)
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Fun With Conservapedia!
A shared pair of valence electrons that olds atoms together in covalent compounds.
Wasn't the Olds Atom made by General Motors c. 1956?
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February 26, 2007
Dionne
Really? Here's what Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) had to say about perjury: "Lying under oath is an ancient crime of great weight because it shields other offenses, because it blocks the light of truth in human affairs. It is a dagger in the heart of our legal system, and indeed in our democracy. It cannot, it should not, it must not be tolerated.''Ros-Lehtinen made that statement not about Libby, but to justify the impeachment of Bill Clinton back in 1998. I have no idea where she stands on the Plame-Wilson case. But it's certainly amusing that so many who were eager to throw Clinton out of office for perjury and obstruction of justice when he lied about sex are now livid at Fitzgerald for bringing comparable charges in a controversy over the rationale for war. Do they think sex is more important than war?
Yes.
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I Can't Imagine How This Happened
Delusional Dick is concerned:
Vice President Dick Cheney warned Monday that al-Qaeda is "regrouping" in Pakistan's remote border region and sought President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's help in a stiffened push against Taliban and al-Qaeda militants, Musharraf's office said.
al-Qaeda is regrouping? Didn't we invade Afghanistan and pressure Pakistan to put an end to the group? Back in 2001? And al-Qaeda is still an issue? I can't imagine why.
Oh, right...
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Gore Meets Oscar
AP Photo/Kevork Djansezian
Al Gore with An Inconvenient Truth director Davis Guggenheim.
Now announce you're running, dammit!
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ADDED: Judge Rufus Pekham has a shocking update.
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February 25, 2007
Heh
Meanwhile, Cheney is running all over the world prattling on like Bette Davis in "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane", Bush is robotically grunting some nonsense about "pertecktin' the troops" and pundits are trying to make us believe that this is some sort of extremely clever ruse that will end with Iran metaphorically falling to the ground and crying uncle. As if "extremely clever" and Dick 'n George can ever be mentioned seriously in the same breath.
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Fun With Conservapedia!
A country in Europe. Thrived during the middle ages. The capitol is Paris, France, which was founded in the Middle Ages.
That's the entire entry.
(Yeah, I know that everybody and their cat is having fun with Conservapedia but it really is addictive. When the entries aren't outright propaganda they read like a sixth-grader's book report (See above).)
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Mitt
Romney's going to find out that it's not important whether you're a "person of faith." What's important is that you're a person of the right faith. It's time to be honest about that. People believe different stuff, that stuff is important to some people, your identification with a particular religious tribe says something about your beliefs. I wish people didn't think that such beliefs were especially important characteristics of candidates, but the fact is they do. I wish our political and opinion leaders (and religious ones, too) were trying to convince people that such things shouldn't be important, but mostly they've been doing the opposite.
Look, I have no—none, zero, nil, zilch, nada, nought—love for Mitt Romney. If he were the last candidate on earth and I the last voter, I'd write in myself sooner than vote for him. But this kind of juvenile, he's-got-cooties, smear-by-association faux-journalism has to stop. It's pathetic; it lowers the public discourse; it insults us all. And it reinforces the privilege of one specific faith. The message, yet again, is that it's not just enough to be religious; you've got to be religious in a certain way—which is to say that you've got to preach that you're from an accepted Christian denomination, and practice intolerance of gays, uppity women, and people with "weirdo religions" (i.e. not privileged) or no religion at all. (See: Bush, George W.) That every last person reading this post will know precisely what I'm talking about (failing willful ignorance) is evidence of that very privilege.
I couldn't agree more. Would that our "news" media abandon its "narratives" and actually, y'know, report.
(Here's the ridiculous Associated Press story that set this off.)
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A Bit Of Jasper Johns
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What A Mess
The New Yorker's Sy Hersh on on planning for war on Iran and various maneuverings in the Middle East.
Oy.
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Too Funny
Genealogists have found that civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton is a descendent of a slave owned by relatives of the late Sen. Strom Thurmond, a newspaper reported Sunday.[...]
“I have always wondered what was the background of my family,” the newspaper quoted Sharpton as saying. “But nothing — nothing — could prepare me for this.”
Those vibrations you feel are Ol' Strom spinning in his grave. Though it does explain a lot.
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[bangs head on desk]
Why, oh why, does the Post-Gazette continue to publish Jack Kelly? Surely there is an honest right-winger out there somewhere. But we're stuck with Jack:
Public Opinion Strategies of Alexandria, Va. surveyed 800 registered voters Feb. 5-7. By identical margins of 57-41 percent, those polled said Iraq was a key part of the war on terror and that U.S. troops should remain until "the job is done." By 56-43 percent, respondents said Americans should stand behind the president in Iraq because we are at war, and by 53-46 percent they said Democrats were going too far, too fast in pressing the president to withdraw troops.
Public Opinion Strategies is a partisan polling firm which used questions designed to elicit a certain response. In other words, the poll is completely meaningless. Even Republican pollsters dismiss the results. See also: Steve Benen.
But perhaps I'm being too hard on the P-G. Perhaps there isn't anyone on the right who is honest anymore. Perhaps it's a totally bankrupt philosophy.
But it is certainly a sad state of affairs if Jack Kelly is the best the right can do.
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This Could Get Ugly
“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.
[...]
A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.
[Via SusanG at dKos.]
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February 24, 2007
Saturday Palate Cleanser
Chameleons UK - In Shreds
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Slow News Day
Entertain yourselves, dammit!
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February 23, 2007
Go, Joe
It's time to make Holy Joe unwelcome in the Democratic party. Beyond his siding with the Rethugs he's now taken to extortion:
So far, Lieberman is using his clout mostly in ways that discomfit his fellow Democrats, while his relationship with Republicans has involved more collaboration than coercion. When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Bush's State of the Union proposal for a bipartisan terrorism panel was redundant, Lieberman, who supported the idea, privately sent Reid a letter saying he was "upset." Within days, Reid backed down and negotiated the panel's makeup with the White House. And last month, after Lieberman told Reid he had stopped attending the weekly Democratic lunch because he didn't feel comfortable discussing Iraq there, Reid offered to hold those discussions at another time. Lieberman has started attending again.
If Weeping Joe caucuses with the GOP that would leave the Senate evenly divided with Delusional Dick as the tie-breaking vote. However, via BooMan, we find out that the Dems would still control the Senate.
As BooMan notes, forcing Lieberman out would enable actual Democrats to placed on several important committees including Homeland Security.
So go, Joe. Your extortion, your enabling of BushCo™, your colossal ego are no longer wanted. Just go.
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Shut Up
What is clear is that the worst-positioned person to scold China about its behavior is the one who just did: Vice President Dick Cheney. In his speech yesterday in Australia, the Vice President helpfully observed that the satellite test, plus the buildup of China's military (with a budget still a tiny fraction of America's) was "not consistent with China's stated goal of a peaceful rise."[...]
Dear Mr. Vice President: there may be valuable things you can do. But telling anyone else how to cultivate a peaceful image is not one of them. Go home, and shut up.
Unhinged Dick has to go.
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Auggghhh!
It's the return of Aluminum Tubes: The Sequel!
Hill singled out U.S. allegations that North Korea maintains a secret highly enriched uranium program as a likely source of future trouble in the talks. Hill charged that U.S. intelligence has discerned in the past a pattern of acquisitions, including aluminum tubes made in Germany, that is "entirely consistent" with a highly enriched uranium program.
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Who Wants Weapons?
As fears grow over the escalating confrontation between Iran and the West, Arab states across the Persian Gulf have begun a rare show of muscle flexing, publicly advertising a shopping spree for new weapons and openly discussing their security concerns.[...]
Patriot missile batteries capable of striking down ballistic missiles have been readied in several gulf countries, including Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, analysts say, and increasingly, the states have sought to emphasize their unanimity against Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
It's odd that the article doesn't mention that the US has destabilized the region. Odd, too, that there's no mention of the enormous sums of cash being raked in by US arms manufacturers.
Or maybe it's not so odd.
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The Clinton Obsession Continues
The WaPo fronts a story about how many speeches Bill Clinton gives and how much money he makes. Out of three web pages only two sentences talk about Poppy Bush's lucrative speaking fees (with a passing mention of Jimmy Carter tossed in).
If Bill Clinton didn't exist the media would have to invent him.
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I Suppose It's A Start
Repealing the 2002 war authorization.
The problem is that the war is ongoing. I don't see that this will have any effect except maybe as a vote of no-confidence.
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February 22, 2007
He's Fucking Insane
US Vice President Dick Cheney on Friday warned that the United States and ally Australia "simply cannot indulge" thoughts of an early withdrawal from Iraq as it would spawn a new wave of global terror.[...]
"The notion that free countries can turn our backs on what happens in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, or any other possible safe haven for terrorists is an option we simply cannot indulge," Cheney said in a speech in Sydney
Asked about the British withdrawal, Cheney told ABC news from Japan: "What I see is an affirmation of Iraq, where things are going pretty well."
Jesus, he's just gibbering now. One minute he says one thing, the next minute the opposite. These are not the statements of a rational man. And I mean that seriously.
Oh, and Dick? Tell your pal John Howard to ship a few tens of thousands more troops over to the sandbox since he's such a big supporter of you. Let's see how much the Aussie people like that.
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Well Then...
A man says he broke into an apartment with a cavalry sword because he thought he heard a woman being raped, but the sound actually was from a pornographic movie his upstairs neighbor was watching."Now I feel stupid," said James Van Iveren, who has been charged in the case. "This really is nothing, nothing but a mistake."
I think it's the cavalry sword that made me laugh.
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Cannon Fodder
Or is it "IED fodder"?
The Pentagon is planning to send more than 14,000 National Guard troops back to Iraq next year, shortening their time between deployments to meet the demands of President Bush’s buildup, Defense Department officials said Wednesday.[...]
“We’re behind the power curve, and we can’t piddle around,” Maj. Gen. Harry M. Wyatt III, commander of the Oklahoma National Guard, said in an interview. He added that one-third of his soldiers lacked the M-4 rifles preferred by active-duty soldiers and that there were also shortfalls in night vision goggles and other equipment. If his unit is going to be sent to Iraq next year, he said, “We expect the Army to resource the Guard at the same level as active-duty units.”
[...]
Capt. Christopher Heathscott, a spokesman for the Arkansas National Guard, said the state’s 39th Brigade Combat Team was 600 rifles short for its 3,500 soldiers and also lacked its full arsenal of mortars and howitzers.
After four years there still isn't enough equipment. Where has all that money been going? But the wingnuts will screech, "They volunteered! They volunteered!" and go back to eating their Cheetos™.
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Uhhh...
I think there's a problem with this graphic:
Britain has 55,000 troops in Iraq? South Korea has as many troops in Iraq as the US?
Boy, they've kept that a secret, haven't they?
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Interesting And Scary
The Administration continues to try to turn itself into an unaccountable dictatorship. This time by arguing against freedom of religion:
On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in just such a case. Hein vs. Freedom From Religion Foundation is unlikely to make headlines, but it could deal a sharp blow to the wall of separation between church and state.The plaintiffs are ordinary citizens who object to their federal tax dollars being used to fund the president's program for "faith-based and community initiatives." In particular, they claim that several conferences sponsored by the program were propaganda vehicles for religion and therefore violated the establishment clause of the 1st Amendment, which forbids government promotion of religion.
The government defendants — "Hein" is Jay F. Hein, director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives — dispute the plaintiffs' claim about the conferences. But at this stage, the Bush administration is asking the court to throw the case out on grounds that ordinary taxpayers have no legal interest in how the executive branch spends public money.
[...]
Suppose, as the lower court suggested, the secretary of Homeland Security used general executive funds to build a mosque and hire an imam in the belief that such visible support for Islam would reduce the risk of Islamist terrorist attacks against the United States. Would this traducing of the establishment clause not allow taxpayers to sue?
[...]
Unfortunately, the Supreme Court rarely takes a case to affirm the decision from below. That, together with the recent shoring up of the court's conservative majority, strongly suggest that the administration's position will prevail, despite the threat it poses to the separation of church and state. If it does, everyone at the ball will take notice. But by that time, the party will be over.
This bears watching.
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He Keeps Getting Stupider
THE NEW YORKER reported this week that the dean of West Point took it upon himself to help put an end to abusive — i.e. torturous — interrogation techniques. He and some of his leading interrogation experts and instructors flew to La-La Land to talk to the producers of Fox's hit show, "24." Army Brig. Gen. Patrick Finnegan told the show's creative team that his students were learning terrible lessons about the utility of brutal violence in interrogations. "The kids see it," Finnegan complained to the article's author, "and say, 'If torture is wrong, what about 24?' "
Goldberg then goes on to mock "liberals" for demanding the censorship of "24."
The problem: He doesn't name even one "liberal," just the Dean of West Point. I have no way of knowing Gen. Finnegan's politics but I'm confident that he's not a "liberal" in the way Jonah means it. While I don't have time to re-read Mayer's article right now, I don't recall any "liberal" being quoted as calling for the censorship of "24."
Goldberg decided he wanted to write a column screeching about "liberal" hypocrisy and, in typical Goldbergian fashion, was unable to justify his position so he just spewed whatever felt right to him.
And if Jonah wants to write about the debasement of culture perhaps he should start with a column about his mother.
(Full disclosure: Though a "liberal", I'm a fan of "24" although, after six years, the show is pretty worn out. But that's another issue entirely.)
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February 21, 2007
Only Disconnect
The Bush administration on Wednesday welcomed Tony Blair’s decision to withdraw nearly a quarter of the British troops in Iraq over the next few months, saying the move showed that in parts of the country “things are going pretty well”.
A U.S. helicopter that had a "hard landing" Wednesday might have been brought down by enemy fire, according to military spokesman Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, and an insurgent group has claimed responsibility.[...]
A car bomb laced with poisonous gas exploded near a hospital in southwestern Baghdad's Bayaa neighborhood Wednesday, killing two civilians and wounding seven others.
[...]
On Tuesday, a cloud of deadly toxic gas engulfed an Iraqi town, killing six people and leaving dozens of others choking on fumes after a tanker carrying chlorine exploded outside a restaurant.
"Hard landing," indeed.
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yay us
Tony Snow, President George Bush's press spokesman, will be the keynote speaker tomorrow at the Republican Committee of Allegheny County's annual Spirit of Lincoln dinner.
The modern Republic party wouldn't know the spirit of Lincoln if he came back to life and ate their brains.
Then again, GOP brains aren't at all nourishing.
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And Now Denmark
The prime minister said Wednesday that his country will withdraw its 460-member contingent from southern Iraq by August and transfer security responsibilities to Iraqi forces, and that the decision had been made in conjunction with the Iraqi government and Britain, under whose command the Danish forces are serving near Basra.
Meanwhile, Delusional Dick chimes in on Britain's pullout:
Asked about the British withdrawal, Cheney told ABC news from Japan: "What I see is an affirmation of Iraq, where things are going pretty well."
Ah, I see. So the US will begin to bring troops home, Dick?
"The American people will not support a policy of retreat," Cheney told about 4,000 troops in the hangar bay. "We want to complete the mission, we want to get it done right, and then we want to come home, with honor."
And there are people who think this administration is filled with smart, sane people.
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February 20, 2007
Cut And Run!
The Poodle jumps ship:
British Prime Minister Tony Blair will announce on Wednesday that thousands of his country's troops are to begin withdrawing from Iraq in weeks, media reports said.According to The Sun daily, Blair will say that the first contingent of 1,500 troops will leave the war-torn country and arrive back in Britain in a matter of weeks, and a further 1,500 will follow by the end of the year.
For all intents and purposes the US is about to be a coalition of one.
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The People Who Run The Country
Federal prosecutors counted immigration violations, marriage fraud and drug trafficking among anti-terror cases in the four years after 9/11 even though no evidence linked them to terror activity, a Justice Department audit said Tuesday.[...]
Boyd denied suggestions that the department pumped up its numbers. He said Criminal Division prosecutors at Justice headquarters and the FBI have overhauled their respective case reporting systems since 2004 for a more accurate picture of terror-related workloads. Both agencies, he said, were strained to accurately report terrorism data in the flood of cases immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
What frightens me the most is how long - years? decades? - it's going to take to clean up the messes left behind by these criminals.
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Here It Comes
US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.
[...]
BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies.
Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.
In other words, Gulf of Tonkin redux. (They'll trace any such attack back to Iran regardless of the facts.)
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The Greatest Threat Facing The Nation
[Neal] BOORTZ: Right. Look, Al Qaeda, they could bring in a nuke into this country and kill 100,000 people with a well-placed nuke somewhere. Ok. We would recover from that. It would be a terrible tragedy, but the teachers unions in this country can destroy a generation.
Hannity agreed.
Remember: These people are considered "respectable" by the media elite.
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Fitz!
Patrick Fitzgerald to to go after Defib Dick?
It wouldn't surprise me but it would still make me very happy.
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St. John The Liar
Republican presidential candidate John McCain said today the war in Iraq has been mismanaged for years and former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld will be remembered as one of the worst in history."We are paying a very heavy price for the mismanagement -- that's the kindest word I can give you -- of Donald Rumsfeld, of this war," the Arizona senator told an overflow crowd of more than 800 at a retirement community near Hilton Head Island, S.C. "The price is very, very heavy and I regret it enormously."
I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history," McCain said to applause.
However:
The comments were in sharp contrast to McCain's statement when Rumsfeld resigned in November, and failed to address the reality that President Bush is the commander in chief."While Secretary Rumsfeld and I have had our differences, he deserves Americans' respect and gratitude for his many years of public service," McCain said last year when Rumsfeld stepped down.
While there's no doubt that Rummy will go down as maybe the worst SecDef/SecWar in history who appointed him and very loudly stood by him for five years? Why doesn't St. John talk about that?
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