Before splitting, I should mention that the one thing that has been really unsettling me so far (and it's what, 10 days into the "war") is that they are releasing "body counts" and there seems to be a little, what do you want to call it...hmmmm...escalation...going on. Does anyone remember the last time this happened in, say, the last 50 years, raise your hands politely if you do.

The snark returns tomorrow -heh-. Just finished another marathon road trip (only three more to go!), have not even watched the news except what I saw in airports...which was mostly CNN, and I kept wanting to jump online and torture Wolfie, but alas, no High Speed internet access without calling ditech.com first for that second mortgage....so, there I was all full of snark and no place to put it. I think I'm going to go flying tomorrow, just me and a Piper Warrior, call it a mental health day. One meeting in the AM, go flying, then home to blog...

I feel better I have a plan...

Thanks for dropping by while I was out...

Driving home, I had the silliest idea...since all these chickenhawks seem to think that the Iraqi Conflict is a videogame based on a PNAC position paper (or set of them), why don't we all send the PNAC warlovers, 1600 Crew and/or Poodle Brigade a quarter taped to a piece of paper in an envelope with a $.37 cent stamp on it and mail away. Each quarter can symbolize a free play of an ultra-violent war-based video game, since that's what these doofuses seem to think this conflict is. I am sure that they all think that at the end all the casualties will just get up and go home, kind of like Amnesia Boy did after the Marine Barracks were bombed in Beirut.

Is this a silly idea or what? But it sure would be funny if the chickenhawks got flooded with quarters, especially if they were the kind from your home state (if available). Write something like "here's a quarter, go play a real video game and quit messing with things you are clueless about" or something similar....

1600 Crew Mailing address:

The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

PNAC has no mailing address on their web site, wussies

Send your $.25 to the Poodle Brigade at:

The Right Honorable Anthony Blair
3100 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20008

There's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug and that's me and I know what it's like. [12/13/2002]

Number of hugs by the Fratboy Coward per his own words, delivered to date: Zero.

Will update this when we see one, however don't hold your breath

Note: I understand that the Pentagon/DoD is not releasing casualty figures for US servicemembers...why? Is there some fear of a backlash?

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) doesn't want to talk about a Texas grand jury's probe that includes questions about the operations of "Texans for a Republican Majority," a political action committee he helped found.

When asked about the investigation at his weekly briefing yesterday, DeLay responded, "That's not on the agenda. Sorry."

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy. The Post has the story about Delay, other republicans and money (what a surprise). Some of the republicans who are mentioned include:

House Republicans last night gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to their most vulnerable colleagues. At a Retain Our Majority Program fundraiser, GOP lawmakers gave about $100,000 each to first-term Reps. Bob Beauprez (Colo.), Ginny Brown-Waite (Fla.), Max Burns (Ga.), Chris Chocola (Ind.), Jim Gerlach (Penn.), Phil Gingrey (Ga.), Steve Pearce (N.M.), Jon Porter (Nev.). Rick Renzi (Ariz.) and Mike Rogers (Ala.). For those counting, this was the seventh ROMP fest.

Ginny Brown-Waite, as you may recall is the rocket-scientist congresswoman who wanted to dig up all the servicemen buried in France and bring them home because she's mad at the French. Of course, that was after she voted on a tax cut, I'm sure.

And we get these people, where?

President Maple Syrup for Brains had breakfast.

His breakfast came with a dig at French opposition to the war: The menu aboard Air Force One listed "stuffed Freedom Toast," instead of French toast.

White House aides expressed surprise, suggesting responsibility for the wording of the menu was the responsibility of the Air Force, not the White House.

Uh Huh

Hasn't anyone told those fools that French Toast was "invented" by an American in upstate New York whose last name was French?

Truly, stupidity knows no limits.

I heard that the Rumsfeld doctrine was really to field only Hollywood action stars like Ah-nold, Sly and Bruce since each of them has defeated at least one total Infantry Division in their careers; but they had "other projects", and besides catering and private trailers were not available.

If you have never been in the service, you might have only heard of this ephemerally, so here's the actual military Code of Conduct. It's taught to everyone as part of their training, some folks get more intense code of conduct training than others, but it's basically provided as a touchstone for military members in case they find themselves as POWs, to help them remember who they are, and to reassure them that we will not forget them.

Excuse me, but if we control the south, then how do the "Iraqi authorities" do this, and if we don't control the south, then what's he bitching about?

...Later, his spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said that the delay in getting aid to southern Iraq was the fault of the Iraqi authorities. "We didn't expect the Iraqis to cease caring about their own people, to cease feeding their own people, to put up impediments to this humanitarian relief supplies," he said. ...

So the Iraqi's are supposed to allow convoys of "humanitarian supplies" from us during a conflict...like what, they stop shooting allow the delivery guy to drop off boxes of MRE's and meds and then start shooting again?

Am I reading this right or just dreaming that the prevARIcator actually made this stupid statement?

Via Atrios

If the American Media loses in a credibility battle to the Iraqi Media, what the hell is going on here? Pfaffenblog has an open letter to the Washington Post, take a read.

Haloscan seems to be down. Comments should be back up shortly, I hope.

It seems that maybe Mssrs Perle, Wolfowitz and Feith need to make that first combat jump into Baghdad after all, Slate has an interesting piece that sort of follows their thinking about Iraq since about GWI. They of course, are the ones who believe(d) that the Iraqi people will welcome us with open arms and rose petals at the feet of our soldiers. Anyhow at a Senate hearing in the late 90's here's Perle being questioned by Senator Chuck Robb (D-VA USMC Officer, Combat Veteran/Vietnam)

...A good sense of what the hawks thought would happen can be found in an exchange that Perle had with Sen. Charles Robb at a Senate hearing in May 1998. When Perle claimed that "once Basra changed hands" the situation on the ground and in the region would "change dramatically," Robb pressed him on how things would get to that point: "Is someone going to have to physically stand on the Basra territory before this change in dynamic occurs? And if so, who is—which troops are going to accomplish that objective?" Perle replied, "I think Iraqi opposition elements, with relatively light armament could accomplish that, provided they were backed up by air power."...

Robb of course, (like Max Cleland of Georgia, another decorated Vietnam Vet) was replaced by the voters in his state by George Allen, a dyed-in-the-wool Chickenhawk with 0 years, 0 months, 0 days, 0 hours, 0 minutes creditable military service. It's no wonder that the congress never asked any questions, there aren't enough Vets to ask about those niggling questions about, like, oh say, troop strength, supply lines, reinforcements...you know, minor stuff. And why in the hell are the chickenhawks so in love with air power anyhow? Good stuff, but the guys on the ground take the objectives, sometimes one foot at a time, sometimes one inch at a time.

And it's never for free.

Dana Milbank in the Post reports that the "Coalition of the Willing" is really the "coalition of the willing to not piss off the white house for fear of being next on the list to be attacked". Or is it the coalition of the willing to make money from Iraq's oil reserves or contracts? Time will tell, eh? Here's my favorite member of the coalition to date:

Palau, an island group of nearly 20,000 souls in the North Pacific, has much to contribute. It has some of the world's best scuba diving, delectable coconuts and tapioca. One thing Palau cannot contribute, however, is military support: It does not have a military.

Perhaps they could send humanitarian aide in the form of tapioca and fresh coconuts for pina coladas for all (non-alcoholic of course) when the war is over.

Ah, the daffodils, the smell of spring is in the air, the geese are flying back to Canada, and another war is being fought out of the Pentagon by clueless civilians. Haven't we seen this movie too? (Apologies to Elton John/Bernie Taupin).

I always thought that we would never let the political leadership make stupid decisions about what occurred on the field of battle, after Vietnam. Apparently I was wrong. Dopey Moi.

And here I thought that the reason we had Generals and Admirals and stuff was to provide guidance on the use of our forces in an operational context. Boy, I guess I was wrong.

Have PVTs Perle and Wolfowitz finished that jump training Chuck Hagel asked about yet?

Isn't it illegal to hack a computer system these days under that speciously named Patriot Act? If so, will our porno-chasing, pot-busting Attorney General get after the folks who did this to Al-Jazeera's English language web site since their primary servers are here in the US? Why do I doubt it.

Well as long as the blue drape is still up on the half-nekkid lady, I guess we're all protected...unless maybe we run a website that the AG disagrees with

Yesterday I asked Rashunda Tramble, a fellow blogger and free-lance journalist living in Switzerland what the media coverage in Europe looked like of the conflict in Iraq. She has posted back with an interesting piece on some of the differences. It seems that there is more real reporting and less happy talk. Makes sense to me, although sad to say it doesn't surprise me. Some one has to be seeing the forest and not just the trees, I guess it won't be American "Journalists" at least not yet.

The mother of one of the identified POW's made a plea to President Deserter to help her son; part of the prevARIcator's statement:

...Asked about her appeal, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said, “The nation’s heart and the president’s heart goes out to the families of those who serve, of those who have lost their lives and of those who are now missing or captured.”...

This from the fratboy coward who said:

There's only one person who hugs the mothers and the widows, the wives and the kids upon the death of their loved one. Others hug but having committed the troops, I've got an additional responsibility to hug and that's me and I know what it's like. [12/13/2002]

Thankfully none of the POW's have been apparently injured by the Iraqi's (I hope that's still true), but it shows the depths of this administration's lack of concern when the prevARIcator trots out the boiler-plate on Day 6.

How are they going to spin their cutting of VA benefits for these soldiers?

Reading through all the various posts on Iraq, local media activity over the last few days and the piss-poor quality of the reportage of the conflict in Iraq, it strike me that we are the victim of two Powell Doctrines, The Colin Powell Doctrine that has led us to this conflict because it could be translated into less than 100 words for President Very Hungry Caterpillar; and the Michael Powell Doctrine which has essentially given control of the airwaves and media to Clear Channel Communications, through the magic of "deregulation".

Of course the republicans will say this is the free market at work, but there's an interesting chart on UggaBugga's site that helps to connect the dots.

Who would have thought it, two father-and-son teams screwing America simultaneously for fun and profit.

Light blogging if any today, under the weather. Check out Kos for some of the best analysis and discussion of the conflict in Iraq. So far he's hit it on the money since the beginning.

While I have avoided the whole John Lott/Mary Rosh thing, John or is it Mary sometimes I get so confused, wrote a letter to the Post today whining about being ignored and declaring the data is not dead!!! He blames it all on his "verifiable" hard drive crash in 1997. boo-hoo. I would hestitate to mention to Mr. Lott that data-recovery services could, for a price, have more than likely gotten his data back, it would not have been cheap, but they do damn fine work and quickly and they were around in 1997.

He also admits to posting under a "false identity" because of obnoxious internet users. What a maroon.

Colbert King has a good column in the Post.

Have you visited Kynn Bartlett's fine blog Shock and Awe lately? Head over there for a different view of the Shock and the Awe...

Things that the tax-cutters are messing with that will change life in America:

• Public Health
• Homeland Security
• Social Security
• Medicare
• Funding for education
• Military Pay and Benefits
• Veterans Benefits

As you can see, nothing major. Really. Honest. The republican leadership told me so.

Feel free to add your own items in the comments, I'm sure the republicans did not send me the complete list.

Today I was driving along listening to some radio station that usually plays geezer-not-weezer music (oldies), pretty inoffensive stuff, when the morning "air personalities" (that's what DJ's like to be called nowadays) started an anti-France tirade. So I decided to call up the morons, knowing that that they would never read my blog, and ask them if they realized that if not for the French during the Revolution we would all be singing "Brittania", having high tea and saying God Save the Queen...a lot.

Male Moron: well what does that have to do with anything? They are not helping us out now.

Female Moron: It was such a long time ago. What's your point?

Only one way to describe these people: F*****g Pinheads. Maybe there's a job for them in the 1600 Crew press office.

I really can't believe this. There are about 58,000 voices represented by names on the Wall who would tell you if they could, that not all military action represents the surest path to winning hearts and minds. It's shameful that the chickenhawks are incapable of hearing.

Maybe Peggy Noonan can channel them for the chickenhawks. She seems to be able to channel everyone else living or dead, and the chickenhawks just luuuuv her to pieces.

Ooops, what was I thinking, the truth might scare her...she's not used to it.

Snort. Thanks TBogg. Truly the snark never sleeps...

Unless the men and women who are fighting in the Gulf as we speak get to take a piece of every oil well they "liberate" and get a lifetime revenue stream from each well, they are screwed. I would go to Vegas and lay odds that they do not know that the Congress that rubber-stamped their administration-sanctioned playtime in Mesopotamia is even now hacking away at their future Veterans Benefits. I have blogged on this in the past here and here, but never really believed that the Congress with No Cojones would be so brazen as to screw the men and women in uniform in the middle of an armed conflict. If you put a picture of every Republican congressman up and titled it with the caption "No Shame", it would not be far from the truth. I would expect that all the dems and republicans who are vets will vote against this horrid bit of legislation, but they are not even close to being a majority in the House. Others who might vote against it will, I am sure, be brought into line by Tom "minorities took my spot, so I could not join up" Delay, who will make sure that the money that would fund veterans programs goes to the likes of Kenny-Boy & Co.

I'm sure they need it, the price of every Defense Contractor stock is sure to rise, and they need the cash to buy more.

As a part of the republican plan, maybe when they separate they'll be getting a talk from those great supporters of the republicans, Multi-Level Marketers on how to make a million selling whatever...for a large enough donation to the RNC, the MLM folks might even get to start bidding on supplies for Iraq. Imagine the possibilities, infinite supplies of unusable soap sold to homeless Iraqis who can't pay. Those guys and gals need to get busy making contacts now, so they can move products after the war.

Is this a great country or what?

Karen Hughes, the Smirk Spinmistress is back, or so it seems. As President AWOL finds that everything is slipping away faster than the tail can wag its dog, Karen Hughes is dumping her "family concerns" quicker than a crack whore who needs a fix turns a trick, to get back into the White House. She's already written a couple of President Snack Foods speeches, advised him on a variety of issues, got to fly on Air Force One again, and has done it all on a paupers salary of a mere $15,000 a month as a consultant for the RNC.

Karl Rove can't be happy about this.

Added some new additions to the Fish Pond, Elayne's Journal and Estimated Prophet. It's worth a mouse click to stop over and pay them a visit...

Commented on this over in Atrios' comments...

MSNBC is reporting that a Marine CH-46 has gone down with the loss of all souls onboard. Of course the "embedded" so-called journalist with the Corps can't get his/her facts straight. They state that the Army also flies the CH-46, which is completely untrue, the Army flies its big brother, the CH-47 Chinook a far larger and more powerful aircraft.

...The Army, which also uses CH-46s, did not ground its fleet...

So incorrect

But both helicopters, the CH-46 and CH-47 were built by Boeings Vertol Division back in the 60's, and both look very similar (two main rotors in tandem on the roof). Why is this a big deal? Well if the local media whore "in-country" can't get a detail like that correct, who knows what other kind of shit they are shoveling because they are to lazy to push back from the bar or too busy waddling down to the breakfast buffet.

Apparently, there have been two other helicopter accidents in the last 24 hours, an MH-53 (a variation of the Sea Stallion flown by the Air Force) and an Apache. I saw on the weather that there was some significant wind/sand blowing which might have been contributory to the accidents...helicopter engines (in fact most turbine engines) are not particularly efficient with sand coming through them. None of the three crashes has been attributed to hostile action. Luckily both the 53 and the Apache had no fatalities according to the news.

Howie Kurtz says misinformation is one of the chief dangers of this conflict. He ought to know, since he's been parroting RNC blastfaxes while performing his "journalistic" duties at the local coffee shop that has WiFi, or at least it sure seems that way. Takes a practitioner to know one, I guess. What happens if the Fat Tony and the Supremes shut down the Post and take away his day job?

I hear they are auditioning for the role of Joe Isuzu again.

For all the anti-Francophiles (that may be too hard a word for the FReepers) out there, remember if it were not for the French we'd still be having high tea, paying taxes to the Chancellor of the Exchequer/Inland Revenue Service and saying "God Save the Queen". Just because they have disagreed with us does not lessen their contribution to our Democracy.

Been meaning to say that. Freedom Fries indeed.

Well, since it's a pretty big country and we had such success finding Osama after invading/declaring war on Afghanistan, I'm sure finding SH will be a cakewalk...NOT.

I was wondering about this. Will DPRK (Democratic Paranoid Republic of Korea) aka North Korea take advantage of this "war" to spend more effort trying to destabilize the region? They really want to be a power-player in Southeast Asia...have we now given them half Carte-Blanche to start moving towards their objectives?

Are the Rovian/Perle minions watching any of this dance around the Korean Peninsula? Or are they too consumed thinking of re-elect numbers/petrodollars/"defense" contracts from campaign contributors?

Stay tuned....

Our Grandchildren might enjoy the respectability we once sort of enjoyed as Americans in the world at large. I'm afraid that it's been hosed up for us for at least a couple of generations to come.

Thanks a lot President Pretzel Logic.

and viscerally I know that I should be grateful for all the good, consumer/ordinary citizen oriented things he's done over the past several decades, but I have to say, thanks again, Ralph!!!!

Note

I do not believe that as a Nader voter you should have done anything other than voted your conscience, if you were (and still are) passionate about Ralph Nader as a presidential candidate, that's great. But I believe that during the last presidential election cycle there was a point that Nader should have taken a good look at the Bush governorship/record in Texas and made the intuitive leap about what might happen with him in the White House. There were plenty of concessions Nader could have gotten from the democratic leadership had he played his cards right and been a viable candidate in 2004 or 2008, or at least been so influential that he would be a "kingmaker". Now no one wants to take his calls, and that's sad because Ralph Nader really is a good man, he just tilted at the right windmill at the wrong time in history.

President Semi-Literate sent a "war letter" to the lapdogs at the other end of the street...Congress. Inquiring minds want to know if it was written in crayon or with one of those big fat pencils that we used to use in grade school. I'm betting crayon, there are more color choices, plus if there were any spare time while waiting for the courier, Ole' Colorforms could have added some pretty pictures so Cat-killer and Bug-killer could have had some souvenir refrigerator art.

Now here's progress...CNN sure is on top of the war stories.

Seventeen Iraqi soldiers may have taken the U.S. leaflet campaign to heart as they surrendered Wednesday to U.S. troops.

Wonder if they get a trip to Gitmo, after all aren't they all al-Qaida in Iraq? Ooops, that was discredited reason #6.

My bad.

Looks like Smirky has his WarOn...my thoughts are with the all the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines, all better men (and women) to a man than the deserter-in-chief and the rest of the Chickenhawks who have sent them there.

If you are the praying type, say a prayer for them on all the days of the conflict, if you aren't the praying-type, please keep them in your thoughts. We can't forget them, we should not stop thinking of them and we need to support them, which is not the same as supporting the administration.

Listening to my iTunes, Elvis Costello popped up with "Shipbuilding" which I think he wrote circa the Brits going off to play in the Falklands. So I was curious, what other recent (let's classify recent as since the end of the Vietnam War) anti-war/protest songs come to mind? Leave a comment with your choice, or email me. Vietnam-era songs count, but they fall into my category...geezer, not weezer.

Let's hear it, and I'll put up a list when I get back from the Big Apple (if I get enough responses). Speaking of Music, gonna go see "Hairspray", hope it's as good as the movie!

The Christers and Fundies Brigade which seems to control so much of the pro-war rhetoric in these days building up to the all-but-inevitable Get-yer-War-on War of Smirky McWarHardon, has proven that it does not really give a shit about soldiers, veterans or anyone else but themselves, really. Well they're just following the lead of President Pretzel Logic, who disses vets at every opportunity (I guess it makes that desertion thing easier to face in what little mind he has). Via Roger Ailes and DU is this story about a veteran who served in the last Gulf War, and was trying to go to Law School at Pat Robertson's Regent University Law School. It seems that he thought that injuries he sustained in the Gulf might have contributed to a facial tic he developed. His good Christian classmates saw it as a sign of Demonic Possession.

You can't make this stuff up.

Expect to see the vets of today's conflicts treated the same way by the same people, either because of their guilt at having never served, or their inability understand the sacrifices that these soldiers made, and will always make for our country.

Everyone involved at that law school should have to go serve in an infantry company in the next installment of the War for Oil II. They might come back and apologize.

a chickenhawk serve? nah. not happening.

This is a fascinating in-a-nutshell look at Iraqi history. Amazingly enough, while some of the syphilitic-child-molesting priests of "old Europe" were keeping my maternal ancestors terrified and poor in England, the Netherlands and Italy just a few hundred miles away a civilization bloomed in Iraq. While my maternal European ancestors burned each other as witches for suspicion of the use of wolfsbane or something equally as stupid, in Baghdad they had teaching hospitals. Then came the Mongols, Turks and The Brits and everything changed and not for the better. Go read the article, it's interesting to see who we've declared "war" on, and how they got to where they are today.

Feel you've been libeled by those pesky 1st Amendment-ites called Journalists? Afraid to lose in US Courts? Then head off to the UK where the suin's easy...Seems that Big Fat Chickenhawk Richard (I don't wanna be an Airborne Ranger) Perle has a leeetle problem with Seymour Hersh of the NY Times. Seems that Perle thinks Hersh is the journalistic equivalent of a terrorist...and my dog is smarter than Smirky McChimpface,. but why make specious comparisons if they're patently untrue? (well my dog is pretty smart and she doesn't do press conferences either) Because it makes the republicans happy to hear that somewhere there's a left-leaning journalist they can hate, thus validating (for them) the SCLM-claim. Anyhow, uggabugga has the chart..and here's the link to the New Yorker article that has poor Chickenawk Dick in such a transatlantic snit.

Of course, if there's any justice left in the world, then Perle will get a judge who's royally pissed at Tony Blair and takes it out on the poor benighted chickenhawk, just because he can...hey sounds like the Perle Doctrine applied!

I remember when I was in college, we were talking about ethics and military rights and responsibilities, and we got into a discussion of WWII, Nazi Germany, the military in Germany and the role it played before and during the war. I remember going to the library and reading portions of the transcript of the Nuremburg trials. I remember this quote of Goerings from the trial and how I thought that it was fortunate that I lived in a country where such a thing could never occur. Fast forward twenty-five years and here I am posting this on a website because I am worried about what might occur.

Hermann Goering was a monster. He was also a highly decorated combat veteran, in fact a hero of WWI. After joining the Nazi party and rising quickly in it's ranks, he saw the potential to abuse his power and took it, never thinking for a moment that there might be a beginning, a middle and an end. The end for him came on his own terms, he took his own life and "cheated" the hangman, but before he went he was in the vanguard of the Third Reich and caused the death of millions and untold destruction and suffering. He knew the secrets of power through unrest, the stirring of nationalistic sentiments and scapegoating of the defenseless and the weak, and rose immeasurably only to fall with the utter defeat of the Nazi's.

I wonder if some of the "Christian" and extreme right might not have learned these lessons in college too, but instead of using them as guidelines, as moral touchstones to help build a better America, they are using them for the same purposes as Herman Goering. To destroy America. Why do they hate the America of Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Jay, Hamilton, Lincoln, Grant, Roosevelt (T.R. and F.D.R), Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and Carter?

Goerings words speak to us from the past of the seemingly benign despotism we are now living with. We need to heed them and be careful of how we continue to behave toward each other, and as country to the world we live in. We have no "god-given" mission to tell the rest of the world how to conduct it's affairs; they are not "with us or against us", we have shown time and again when a genuine threat to our security rises we will face it and fight it no matter if it's a relatively brief time like WWII or a long campaign of forty-plus years of the cold war. We do not need to destroy historic alliances, prop up and tear down tinpot dictators, persecute immigrants because they came here believing that we all believe the words on the Statue of Liberty, just like they did, until they received their first taunting or worse, inspired by the likes of Michael "Savage" Weiner or Bill O'Reilly.

We're better than that, we should believe that and continue to be the kind of Americans the rest of the world expects us to be, not what we are becoming, echoes of Goering words.

The DoD has sent six of the overpriced, goofy bombers known as the F-117's to South Korea to play in one of the annual military exercises there. Well, there's nothing like irritating a paranoid, insecure, totalitarian madman with a half-assed over-publicized weapons system that will convince him that we are about to bomb him/his nuclear facilites.

The North Korean air defenses are pretty good, and the 117 can very likely defeat them, but it carries only a very small bomb load, more useful for scaring an opposition force with just a couple of precision guided bombs, than inflicting massive damage. Is that a bad thing? No, but it's a serious destablizer in any balance-of-power equation. And I think that North K's attempts to achieve some sort of parity to gain political advantage by brinksmanship is going to be tossed out by the rampant paranoia of the leadership there in favor of something in the not-so-smart category.

Moderation has never been a virtue there, no reason to expect it now. Look for them to do something stupid, especially if any war begins in Iraq.

Proving once again that the day I took my daughter to the Mall in Washington DC, stood before the Capitol building and told her "That's a place full of crooks, morons and simpletons" I was right. Two of the more illustrious members of the House of Representatives today set in motion the renaming of French Fries to Freedom Fries in the House Cafeteria (taxpayer subsidized?). One of the morons in charge of this effort is Bob Ney (R-unfortunately from OH) the other is some idiot from North Carolina with an IQ like Brother Bob's, roughly equal to an amoeba. We are having this small budget crisis right now in Ohio, perhaps we could recover the money it costs to keep that looney-toon in DC for the state treasury.

There are a lot of school kids who would benefit from the dollars and an order of French Fries.

Scoobie Davis (welcome back, Scoobie) has an interesting piece about "inappropriate journalistic behaviour" involving Ceci Connolly of the Washington Post, who it seemed to me, in the 2000 Presidential campaign never seemed to get too far from the RNC talking points when filing stories about Al Gore.

Scoobie suggests writing to Michael Getler at ombudsman@washpost.com and inform him about how you feel about Ms. Connolly’s journalistic standards.

My letter has already gone.

It looks like President aWol's dial-an-ally campaign is a bust. Maybe next time he picks up the phone, it should be for some hot phone sex instead. All he would need to do would be to send Ashcroft somewhere else for a day or so.

Well, the world obviously knows a bad deal when they see (and hear) one, too bad the chickenhawks have not figured it out yet.

Maroons.

I'd like to say I'm surprised by this, but I guess not. I understand that Halliburton's been invited to "bid" too. Gee, wonder who's gonna win?

Jeebus, they don't even have the good grace to wait 'til the slaughter is over to start rewarding their donors.

Nope, not about oil, money, power, WMD's, just the poor oppressed Iraqi people (whom we, the bushies never cared about before), and "evildoer" Saddam, our former sock-puppet-turned-big-blue-meanie.

Someday, the records of this administration will be public, although it may be our great-grandchildren who read them. I think they'll be embarrassed for us.

If you have not read it today, here's Tbogg on why Britt Hume should give it a rest. Go T!

I'll bet Tom Tancredo has his panties in a bunch over this. Maybe they'll all move to his district and send him to the unemployment office.

This guy must be pretty sharp to write his own appeal and get it heard by the Supreme Court, or some clerk was asleep while reading briefs. I'm betting that Fat Tony figures he's a slimeball anyhow and votes against him, Thomas votes the same way as Fat Tony on everything since he doesn't have a brain in his fucking head anyhow, Rehnquist hates everybody not white, rich and or named bush, and that leaves one vote for O'Connor to take out her rage against some shmuck who can actually read and write while in prison. She hates everyone because she wants to "retire" along with Rehnquist, but can't since the Dems refuse to roll over on Estrada and hopefully other nominations from President Too-Stupid-to-Chew.

It's not that I feel bad for the guy, I mean, he probably had the speed in his house, the arrest was probably righteous, but to get that far on an appeal and have to argue in front of such magnificent bozos is almost beyond comprehension. Poor guy.

As the world gets smaller, so it seems do our chances of avoiding strange and exotic diseases. Well, that's the price we all pay for civilization I guess. But as this tax-cut mania somehow becomes the obsession of the masses who are being led around by the nose by the republicans, it seems that the money that the government used to spend on public health concerns may be more affected than we once thought, or even knew. Some of these new (and old) pretty horrible diseases on their way to us here in the states, include West Nile Virus, dengue hemorragic fever, Rift Valley fever, encephalitis, and malaria. Here's a description of Rift Valley fever:

...And with that comes an increased chance of spreading more mosquito-borne diseases such as yellow fever, dengue fever, malaria, encephalitis and Rift Valley fever, a deadly virus transmitted from livestock to humans by mosquitoes that causes diarrhea, nausea, and internal bleeding and can result in death...

I doubt there are too many politicians who would have the guts to stand up to any American and tell them it's a tax cut or R&D on controlling these diseases and their carriers. What will they say when it's a constituents' loved one who might have been saved? Too bad, I had to vote for a tax cut because that's what you really wanted, not a live spouse/child/parent? Yeah, I'm seeing that happen.

Not the way I would choose to go. But hey, I got my tax cut before I went!

Thanks, Grover just like the government not having the money for "homeland security" now there's no money for public health! You're a real pal! Can we send the bills to you?

There's a country that can truly make trouble, but they have no oil, and just can't seem to catch the attention of the 1600 Crew. I just don't get it.

Bomb Saddam, but let Kim be.

There's Britney Spears song in there somewhere, or maybe Lee Greenwood. My head hurts.

Check out this fine essay, it's what blogs are really all about...someone should offer the ol' Cowboy a gig as a writer...

Here's a pretty good assessment. The Xanax Cowboy indeed. Not enough Xanax for the rest of us perhaps.

Even Thomas Friedman is having second thoughts. Hmmmmmmmm...

This is from a comment on Atrios today, by Marisacat:

this is a little long but this seems a good time and place to post these words of Maj Gen Butler, USMC, from a 1933 speech:

General Butler was twice awarded the Medal of Honor (1914, 1917). General Douglas MacArthur described Butler as "one of the really great generals in American history."

Here's what Butler said later in his life, when he was not in danger of losing his job:

"War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

³I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

³I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

³There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss," Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

³It may seem odd for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

³I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

³I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 . I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

³During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."

I'm speechless. They should paint that on the outside of the Pentagon.

If as all the advocates of the Death Penalty assume, it is a deterrent, then why are they executing their 300th convicted murderer in Texas this week? I'm guessing that there are 299 folks who somehow missed getting the message. Of course some were likely mentally incapable of understanding the message, but they enjoy Fat Tony's Cronys protection for now.

If it is truly a "deterrent" then you would assume that the local executioners would make sure that every execution was carried out in full public view, with the horribleness of the state-sponsored event (and it would be murder if the accused were actually innocent) covered by the local and national media.

"They're killing people every day almost, every week," said Mr. Johnson, who was convicted of the fatal shooting of a gas station attendant in 1995. "It's not shocking any more. Most people don't even know unless they're involved. There's just a vague mention of it in the paper."

Michael Dewayne Johnson, was scheduled to be No. 300 until he and another inmate received temporary reprieves last month.

Hey, we are ending someone's life here, no matter the reason that's a significant event. But the save the unborn-at-any-cost right wing (John Ashcroft et. al.) of America seem to somehow feel that not all life is equal when they say so (do they have a direct line to their supreme being we don't know about?).

And hey, in Texas, if you were wondering inmate #300 to be executed is named Delma Banks, I'm sure he's no angel but in return for giving him $3.00 worth of meds, I thought I'd give you his name. The media outside Huntsville might "forget".

The inimitable Mrs. Fish asked an very incisive question tonight at dinner, "if we could catch Khalid what-iz-name, who looks like any John Q Public on the street in Pakistan, how come we can't catch a 6'5" skinny guy who's living on the edge of renal failure?"
I guess when your family has enough clout with the Selected Fraud Deserter-Boy's family to get the only civil aircraft flight out of the US after 9/11 and is in so tight with the Saudi Royals that they dispatch their Royal ass-wipers to your mansion, you can have a rogue brother or two.

From the Tampa Tribune,

TAMPA - The twin-engine Lear jet streaked into the afternoon sky, leaving Tampa behind but revealing a glimpse of international intrigue in the aftermath of terrorist attacks on America.

The federal government says the flight never took place.

But the two armed bodyguards hired to chaperon their clients out of the state recall the 100-minute trip Sept. 13 quite vividly.

In the end, the son of a Saudi Arabian prince who is the nation's defense minister and the son of a Saudi army commander made it to Kentucky for a waiting 747 and a trip to their homeland.

The hastily arranged flight out of Raytheon Airport Services, a private hangar on the outskirts of Tampa International Airport, was anything but ordinary. It lifted off the tarmac at a time when every private plane in the nation was grounded due to safety concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks.

I guess my answer would be, you can't find what you aren't looking for can you?

visitor 10,000 will drop by...thanks again to everyone who has been part of my growing community. I appreciate your clicking over, leaving comments and sending e-mails. I would especially like to thank four of you who got me started and kept me going; Anne Salisbury (who I think gave me my first inbound link , whoever has her, please return her...NOW! we miss her); Tbogg, skippy and Cowboy Kahlil. And of course, Atrios grandperson (boy or girl we'll never know) of right-Thinking lefty bloggers everywhere and everyone who has blogrolled me, if I have missed linking back to you, please let me know...I'll add you to the Fish Pond (just trying that out ... like it?).

I appreciate your stopping in and wasting spending your valuable time here around drop by anytime, the door is never locked!

Jo

Drop over and say hi to Serenitee, an amazing woman with one of the hardest jobs on Earth especially these days, Military Spouse. She's back into blogging and has a gorgeous weblog...wish I could do that kind of work! Welcome to the Fish Pond, Serenitee!

Just found this site BlogStickers, thanks for the link to PalmettoJournal.

It's a good thing that Bob Novak wasn't at the Presidential Imperial Press Conference the other day, he'd a been pissed.

And my question is, since you are always fair, Ari, in recognizing all of us, who was it that wrote that script that the President confessed to? Was it Karl Rove or Karen or who?

MR. FLEISCHER: It was me who gave the President a suggestion on the reporters to call. And the President called on all reporters, the President did not call on any columnists.

According to President So-Stupid-I-Can't-Swallow, the Senate is a "disgrace" for doing it's duty and not rubber-stamping an unqualified, secretive party hack as a lifetime-tenured Federal Judge. Here's the ever-sharp and prevaticating Ari:

Q: ...The second question has to do with Miguel Estrada. After the vote yesterday and the statement put out by the President, what is the next step? How long before something moves in either direction?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, the President viewed the action by the Senate to delay even giving Miguel Estrada an up or down vote as a disgrace. The President thinks that it was wrong, particularly given the fact that some of the leading opponents of giving Miguel Estrada an up or down vote vowed they would never filibuster a nominee because they thought it was wrong to do, yet nevertheless they turned right around and have done it. That's not right.

I guess that's why the Framers gave the Senate the power of Advice and Consent, to piss off the unelected Moron. Good going guys. By the way, couldn't these same Senators have stood up when Ashcroft was nominated...too late now.
Well, spines are a feature of Evolution...

(Saturday@noon)
If anyone saw the headline of this post they would have rightly wondered where the text of the post was. Good question. I was wondering too. I just returned from a road trip that was Phase 1 of a big VPN installation for my employer. Without boring you, I have to tell you that this whole project is in perfect alignment with Murphy's Law. No one single thing has gone wrong, but combinations of little things have conspired to keep me up for 36 hours at a stretch at different sites over the last five days. So, while all the rest of you were sleeping (or whatever) I was fighting with Telco's, DSU's, Routers, Firewalls and almost anything else that stood between me and a pillow. At some point in there, I must have logged into Blogger while the Telco had me on hold and started to write something (I don't remember what), and there it stayed. Things I know I did:

• got the VPN's up and running
  
• shut frame circuits down
  
• ate at Panera
  
• drove somewhere
  
• read Tbogg and Cowboy Kahlil while on hold
  
• read Atrios while on hold and I think I wrote a comment somewhere
  
• ate at Panera
  
• talked to Cisco TAC about a malfunctioning router
  
• yelled at the Telco
  
• yelled at my boss for being annoying
  
• read the on-line help wanted ads
  
• finally got all the sites talking to the new VPN location
  
• yelled at the Telco ... again... for dropping their circuits
  
• drank a lot of bottles of Evian, it's all they had left at the grocery store (now why aren't people buying French stuff again?)
  
• drove somewhere else
  
• ate at Panera
  
• saw Ari Fleisher on TV, his lips were moving so I knew he was lying, went back to doing something else
  
• bought coffee at Panera, don't remember eating
  
• yelled at the Telco again on my cell while driving to somewhere else, felt better
  
• went to bed
  
• drove home

New Millionaire Lifeline: Call a tubercular friend?
I wonder if his accomplice can cough up Jailhouse Rock?
I'll take the money and the Vap-O-Rub, Regis....

What a Great Blog...Seeing the Forest
It's time to take this country back from the wingers/fReepers/fundies. Here's their agenda. How do we turn it back on them? IssuesGuy has some interesting thoughts

Is there any chance that we can get some of the head cases inside the Beltway to stop breathing some of the diesel fumes and think for a minute? This has to be one of the most disturbing stories I have seen this week. It seems that President Can't Fly Straight-and-Level has ordered bombers to Guam, so they are within range of North Korea. Wow. Imagine how much better I feel now. Some of the most hardened air defenses in the world, and they are thinking about sending bombers in there? Let's do a little math, shall we...stealth bombers carry very low conventional ordnance loads (the fact sheet says 40,000 lbs payload, but that's an interesting number for a lot of reasons), so sending in tons of them (and there aren't all that many "stealth-y" bombers in the inventory) would be impractical. B-52's the workhorse of the Air Force, that fabulous plane that saw us through the Cold War are nothing but a huuuge targets for the North K Air Defenses, so what does that leave?

Is President Plutonium contemplating something new-kew-lar?

I really needed a good night's sleep, and the tin foil is so noisy. Thanks, Smirky.

You know the tune....

Mrs. Fish will be sooooo happy. Now she just has to put up with the DVD's.

A hearty Welcome Aboard to The Hamster and FoolBlog as they join the Good Linkage on the right correct/other side of my page. -whew- almost said something else...Drop over, have a cup of coffee, tell 'em Jo sent ya!

Road Trip, light blogging this week (if I get broadband in my hotels). Thanks for all the comments and sticking with me!

Go here. Donate. Support our troops. I can unequivocally tell you Nothing beats mail when you're out there. Even if it's junk mail after awhile. And I don't think this qualifies as Junk Mail.

Thanks to South Knox Bubba for the pointer.

Here's a story that was on CNN or MSNBC today (not a link to CNN/MSNBC). First coverage I've seen in major media, but then I hardly ever watch the MW's anymore. This female Basketball player has been protesting the war by turning her back on the flag during the National Anthem before tip-off. Some local veterans are incensed about her excercise of the rights they served to protect. Silly really . The psuedo-FReeper boards have been buzzing about her (I stumbled across one looking up some info on this).

PURCHASE, N.Y. -- A Vietnam veteran came onto the court Sunday and held an American flag in front of Manhattanville senior forward Toni Smith after the Division III player again refused to face the flag during the national anthem. Jerry Kiley, 56, of Rockland County, N.Y., approached Smith as she lined up while another player prepared to shoot free throws. He was escorted out of the gym by school security and local police.

What a brave woman.

Update

Got this from the proprietors of The Wage Slave Journal, a fine blog/e-zine. The link here is to a story from ESPN.com by Ralph Wiley. Ralph nails it on the head, and brings up the comparison to Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the '68 Mexico City Olympics, an odious incident I had not thought about. What happed to Smith and Carlos should certainly not be the fate of Toni Smith. Check out the column.

Chilean protestors 'git nekkid' to protest the war.

(AP) More than hundred 300 men and women undressed in a warm Saturday morning in Santiago to stage a festive protest against war in Iraq. Police watched the unusual protest appearing even to share the humor of the demonstrators in a park in downtown Santiago. The humorous mood did not last long. After about one hour, the demonstrators — some of them dressed again, others still naked — marched several blocks to a plaza in front of the presidential palace of La Moneda, where they tried to repeat their massive naked protest.

It seems that when they got to the presidential palace, they got hosed down and some got locked up. The local constabulary was not so amused I guess.

Is it just me, or are we seeing more and more naked protestors in this millennium than the last?

Just a thought.

So Turkey said no to the biggest bully on the block. Fair enough, it is after all a sovereign democracy (I was going to say democratic country, but the FReepers would have killed me), but now the 1600 Crew wants a mulligan in their parliament.

(Reuters) - The White House on Saturday dismissed Iraq's destruction of some banned missiles as part of a "game of deception," edging closer to war despite the Turkish Parliament's refusal to grant U.S. troops access to the country's bases for a possible invasion. Holding out hope NATO ally Turkey would come around, U.S. officials asked for "clarification" after parliament refused to grant permission for the deployment of tens of thousands of American troops as part of a "northern front" against Iraq.

I guess that we now start to add things with/from Turkey to the list of things we should not buy. Well there goes my coffee and and Turkish Taffy consumption. Damn.

1. I should mention...

   
   
2. The snark returns tomorrow -heh-.
   

3. Infinite Lives

   
   

4. HugWatch

   
   

5. Delay and a Grand Jury?

   
   

6. small men, small minds

   
   

7. The Rumsfeld Doctrine?

   
   

8. The Code of Conduct

   
   

9. prevARIcator watch

   
   

10. I think he's got a point