I remember seeing the prototype for the Osprey twenty or so years ago at North Island, I knew the Marine Colonel relieved over that Maintenance records incident ivolving the V-22 a couple of years ago, so I've always been a bit interested in the whole VTOL/Tilt rotor Osprey concept. The Osprey is basically the Undead Budget Item, no one can drive a stake through its heart and it just keeps on sucking out money, year after year.

Unfortunately, (or fortunately depending on your POV), it looks like the V-22 is going to be a production bird.

It took twenty years and $19 billion. But at 4pm today, I'm told, the Pentagon's Defense Acquisition Board will announce its recommendation to go ahead with "full rate production" of the once star-crossed, accident-prone Osprey V-22 tiltrotor craft.

The fate of the hybrid aircraft has been very much in question, ever since a pair of Ospreys crashed in 2000, killing 23. This decision "gets the program off probation. It can't be summarily cancelled now," a source close to the program says.

But Lehman was smitten. "It was very easy to fly," he says, "far more stable than a traditional helicopter, and simpler and safer than a Harrier. I was convinced it was what we needed." Lehman pushed the plane through the Navy's acquisition process.

It's been 22 years, and the skies aren't exactly crowded with Ospreys. After more than two decades and $16.4 billion, the history of the V-22 is a sorry tale of cost overruns, shoddy construction, and managerial incompetence. Thirty people have died in four Osprey crashes, making the V-22 one of the killingest experimental planes ever. The program has teetered on the brink of elimination since almost the beginning.

One other side note: anyone out there know what the Osprey's deck multiple is? Just curious.

Well, it's really the same fine mess, just looking a little more dismal now. As the days have turned into weeks have turned into months, Preznit Pinocchio has stepped up at almost every available opportunity to proclaim how the Iraqi Security Forces have been readying themselves to have it "Brought On" to them. Uh-huh.

The number of the Iraqi army's 86 battalions that can fight insurgents without U.S. and coalition help has dropped from three to one, top U.S. generals told Congress yesterday, adding that the security situation in Iraq is too uncertain to predict large-scale American troop withdrawals anytime soon.
...
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and his commanders yesterday publicly hedged their forecasts of U.S. involvement in Iraq, leaving it unclear when troops will be able to come home or how long it will take before Iraqi security forces can defend their homeland.

And in the Day Late and Billions of Dollars Short Department, here are some of our noble republcian Senators either asking questions, or grandstanding for C-SPAN, you decide:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he believes the United States has not had enough troops to fend off insurgents permanently. McCain also chastised Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, who retires as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff today, for being overly optimistic because "things have not gone as we had planned or expected nor as we were told by you, General Myers."
...
Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) said she was discouraged by the lack of readiness by the Iraqi security force. She said that it "contributes to a loss of public confidence in how the war is going," and that "it doesn't feel like progress when we hear today that we have only one Iraqi battalion that is fully capable."
...
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) said he doubts that U.S. commanders have a clear handle on the nature of the insurgency and said the war has been more difficult than he expected.

It's hard to give these folks any credibility now, not that I ever did before. McCain lost my respect when he went spelunking up Preznit Endless Anus' rectum, Lindsay Graham has been a tool and a half for years and Susan Collins, reliably wishy-washy...is she a moderate? Is she a conservative? Stay tuned, tomorrow she's something different!

The only sure facts in Mess O'Potamia, no one has fucking clue about what's going to happen when the sun comes up every day except for two things: it's gonna be hot, and the sun will set in the west. Hopefully.

Tom Delay's indictment ought to provide so much fodder for the DNC it's not funny. Howard Dean, yo, are you listening? And you know what? I don't give a rats-ass if the republicans are going to go tit-for-tat on "charging" Democratic members with "alleged" crimes. If our guys in fact did something wrong, fuck 'em. Regaining the public trust by casting out ignorant Democrats who held themselves above the law is more important than protecting the jobs they used to get their stupid asses into trouble in the first place.

The indictment points out one thing very, very clearly: the GOP-controlled Congress is unable to police itself. Yeah, what House Ethics Committee? Which leads to the inevitable question: how can they be watchdogs for the rest of the government? Especially the Executive Branch?

Preznit Cowardly Asshat's voluntary war has given them (and the courts) cover to grovel and whine and say "but we're at waaaar". No, we've been dragged into a conflict that Beloved Leader had fantasized about since before he was inaugurated after the stolen election of 2000. The War of Amorphous Syllogisms has been going on purely at the whim of the folks in the GOP who need to keep the level of fear up in this country to stay in power. If we're at War, why hasn't one Congressman, of either party stood up once a day and asked in the well of the House and Senate: "Where is Osama bin Laden today?" Why not, because gosh, we can't be mean to the Preznit...waaaah, we're at War.

What they've done with that power instead is to first pervert and then corrupt the republic for their own ends: enriching their friends, ending inconvenient civil liberties, abrogating the Bill of Rights and demagogery, lots and lots of demogogery to keep their "base" loyal.

So, it's not surprising that Tom Delay, the man who once told a restaurant employee "I am the Federal Government" so he could smoke in a smoke-free restaurant, got indicted. He did what he did, because he knew (in his mind) he'd never be called to account. Apparently it's rumored he's going to plead nolo contendre to that conspiracy charge, he's agreed to waive the statute of limitations on it to take the plea. Why would anyone do that? Because they're trying to avoid what the prosecutor really has in their briefcase.

I hope that at his plea hearing, they make Delay allocute to the charges and it's on camera, live. I also hope they sentence Mr. Law-and-Order Delay to all two years of his time in prison. After all, he's led many a charge to punish criminals. Now that he might be one, why should it be any different for him? Oh, he's a republican.

Remember the story a little while back about Mark Maida, a Marine who was killed in Iraq? His parents apparently joined Cindy Sheehan in her protest outside the White House, and here's what happened:

Madison's Ray and Diane Maida say they were treated to an example of how President Bush just doesn't get it as the participated in the anti-war protest in Washington.

The Maidas, who lost their son, Mark, to a roadside bomb south of Baghdad last May, were standing outside the White House Monday morning when they saw a motorcade approach. The quickly donned T-shirts emblazoned with pictures of their dead son as an act of protest.

The president, spying the couple on the sidewalk from his limousine, smiled and waved.

"He was waving like a maniac," Ray Maida said. "He thought we were there to support him. He was clueless that we were there to show him the face of war."

Damn incompetants. They can't even get Preznit Misinformed the right set of memos from his boss, Dick Cheney before he trots out to the Rose Garden and opens his yap.

President Bush on Wednesday warned there will be an upsurge in violence in Iraq before next month's voting, but said the terrorists will fail. "Our troops are ready for them," he said.

He's such a Hero. I'm just waiting for the press conference where he comes out and says he'd rather "have a bottle in front of me, than a frontal lobotomy". Too late, I think.

Farnsworth over at One Pissed Off Vet has a pretty good account of his activities last weekend, and some wonderful pictures. Go check it out, if you've got a minute.

AssRocket:

The Democratic Party is committed to the view that there is no such thing as going too far.

Awesome.

A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep.
Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, an indictment that likely will force him to step down as House majority leader.

We have been touched by the noodly appendage of the Flying Spaghetti Monster today, yea verily.

Man, sometimes you just wait for the stories to write themselves. Seems that Michael "Not Me!" Brown somehow managed to sign a deal for $236 million in cruise ship space on three Carnival ships for six months.

On Sept. 1, as tens of thousands of desperate Louisianans packed the New Orleans Superdome and convention center, the Federal Emergency Management Agency pleaded with the U.S. Military Sealift Command: The government needed 10,000 berths on full-service cruise ships, FEMA said, and it needed the deal done by noon the next day.

The hasty appeal yielded one of the most controversial contracts of the Hurricane Katrina relief operation, a $236 million agreement with Carnival Cruise Lines for three ships that now bob more than half empty in the Mississippi River and Mobile Bay. The six-month contract -- staunchly defended by Carnival but castigated by politicians from both parties -- has come to exemplify the cost of haste that followed Katrina's strike and FEMA's lack of preparation.

Coburn and Obama disagreed. "Finding out after the fact that we're spending taxpayer money on no-bid contracts and sweetheart deals for cruise lines is no way to run a recovery effort," they said in the statement.

Gee, sometimes those damned facts are just so inconvenient and shit, aren't they?

We're getting underway over at the new blog. Several of my buddies from out here on the Internets have posted their first posts. Drop on over. Featured will be Fixer from Alternate Brain, Terry from Nitpicker, and Lurch. It's Lurch's first time as a blogger, and he's got the first post up there. Go on over, check it out. We'll be adding more contributors over the next days and weeks. Thanks!!!

The fun starts in earnest next Monday.

Blogroll us and stop by often and tell your friends!

Gosh, they're compassionate over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They just can't stand to see a white guy out of work. Look at Michael Brown. Now there's perhaps another opportunity for more consulting work for the guy who was head of the FDA for two months.

Catherine W. Crawford, the wife of Lester M. Crawford, who resigned abruptly as commissioner of food and drugs last week, said on Monday that he had stepped down voluntarily and "was not fired."
...
Mrs. Crawford said she "knew everything" about her husband of 42 years, adding, "There could not be a more moral, upright person." She rejected suggestions by a government official that her husband had omitted material information from his financial disclosure statements.

She said it was not true that "we had stock that should have been sold quicker."

Dr. Crawford, 67, resigned on Friday, just two months after he was confirmed by the Senate, on July 18. He gave no reason. But a government official said on Friday that the resignation was related to Dr. Crawford's not fully disclosing information about his finances to the Senate.

A senior Republican senator told the White House on Friday that President Bush should cancel his plan to allow the director of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Andrew C. von Eschenbach, to serve simultaneously as acting commissioner of food and drugs.

The senator, Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Finance Committee, said that an acting commissioner must be willing to "dedicate 100 percent of his or her time and talent to the nation's public health and safety agency."

Mr. Bush said on Friday that he intended to name Dr. von Eschenbach to the position. Dr. von Eschenbach, a longtime friend of the Bush family, had been executive vice president of the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

In an interview Saturday, Dr. von Eschenbach said he would keep his job at the cancer institute while running the Food and Drug Administration. He reaffirmed that plan on Monday in a memorandum to outside experts who advise the cancer institute.

Dr. Eschenbach is undoubtedly a qualified physician, but WTF, over? Are there no other qualified men or women who could the job of FDA boss, or is Dr. Eschenbach going to go all Porter Goss on the FDA and start hacking away at the disloyal FDA staffers on behalf of Preznit Nappy Time?

Even Chuck Grassely is starting to break from the party line and is opposing this guy for all the right reasons. FDA is not a part-time job, and running both large organizations is not fair to either of them, however easy it is for Preznit Shrunken Brain to make that decision.

Apparently a suicide bomber was stopped at a Marine checkpoint in the Green Zone before he could detonate his bomb. Officials in Baghdad are for some reason expressing surprise that it could have happened.

A car bomber penetrated the heavily fortified Green Zone in the center of the capital on Tuesday but was stopped by U.S. Marines at an "internal checkpoint" before he was able to detonate the vehicle, the military said.

U.S. troops destroyed the explosive-rigged car and detained the bomber, a military spokesman said.

Although the breach did not result in any deaths or injuries, it raised alarm about how the bomber was able to enter the most secured compound in Iraq.

And in other news.

Meanwhile on Tuesday, U.S. and Iraqi officials announced that Iraqi and American security forces killed the No. 2 al Qaeda leader in Iraq, Abdallah Najim Abdallah Muhammad Juwari, also known as Abu Azzam.

I guess they must be warming up the auto-pen to sign that Medal of Freedom certificate for the Ol'Arabian. He's doing the Loyal Vassal dance even as we speak over on Capitol Hill, trotting out the 1600 Crew talking points, with enough deliberation that even the stupidest members of congress can get them written down.

The former head of the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency, who resigned under a hail of criticism about the slow response to Hurricane Katrina, on Tuesday blamed local officials and said his agency had done a good job.

"My biggest mistake was not recognizing, by Saturday (before the storm made landfall), that Louisiana was dysfunctional," Michael Brown told a House of Representatives panel looking into the aftermath of the catastrophic storm.

"I very strongly personally regret that I was unable to persuade (Louisiana) Governor (Kathleen) Blanco and (New Orleans) Mayor (Ray) Nagin to sit down, get over their differences and work together," he said. "I just couldn't pull that off."
...
"It's my belief that FEMA did a good job in the Gulf states," Brown said. He said most of the problems were due to a failure of state and local officials to order a mandatory evacuation of New Orleans earlier than Sunday, the day before the storm hit land.emphasis added

Another mistake, Brown said, was not setting up a system for media briefings to respond to all of the interview requests during the storm.

For a guy with no resume, he sure lies convincingly, gee he must be a hack attorney or something.

Well, at least no prize Arabian Horses were lost in the hurricane, so he's still got that going for him. Gotta have something to write on the MoF commendation certificate narrative.

After all, all this fuss about pictures of dead brown people shot up and mutilated. Those pictures traded for porn by troops in Iraq (and Others, I'm sure). Geez c'mon, Abu Gonzales is gonna protect us from the old in-out and some good old girl-on-girl tongue'n'titty action. As for the other stuff, heck, it's just quaint. Ask Alberto. He knows. He encourages it. He probably goes home and looks at that site, a kleenex in one hand and his pathetic little soldat in the other while moaning, "Quaint, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck the Geneva Convention, Arrrrrghaaaaa".

He'll be sad on the day that they take that site down. And it's gonna cost us all more, because he'll have to go to GITMO for some good old fashioned brown-person abuse, live and in-person. It's such a republican thing to do. Heck, it's almost like that frat initiation he never got to come...to.

What Fixer said over here. And what this OP-ED in the Post says:

It doesn't help any that the Democrats haven't been able to speak plainly in decades. Because if under George W. Bush the Republican Party has become heartless, the Democratic Party has become spineless. Republicans like my neighbors look at left-leaning candidates and see nothing but a blur. (I myself went hoarse last year during the presidential debates, screaming, "Stop hedging and say what you mean!" at the television set.) Or, as my friend Mark, a lifelong liberal, put it: "I'm so disgusted with the leadership from both parties that I'm going to become an anarchist."

Bye, bye DINO's. Bye Bye DLC'rs. It's time to Bring It. Or be doomed to being inconsequential forever and ever.

Another round of wasting taxpayer money in an effort to promote a state religion, the Constitution be damned.

Lawyers for a group of parents Monday challenged the teaching of intelligent design as nothing more than an old argument for God wrapped in new cloth, as a new legal front opened in the evolution wars.
...
"This clever tactical repackaging of creationism does not merit consideration," Witold Walczak, legal director of the Pennsylvania American Civil Liberties Union and a lawyer for the parents, told a federal judge. "It's an old argument for God that's been around for centuries."
...
The school board, represented by the Thomas More Law Center, a religious-based nonprofit firm, took the position that this was about freedom of speech.

"Intelligent Design theory is really science in its purest form," said Pat Gillen, a lawyer for the board. "It promotes the search for knowledge that embodies the essence of a liberal education."

Not.

I guess that asking these idiots to spend more time in their respective Sunday schools teaching whatever fables they want is out of the question. That would require that they drag their asses out of bed on Sunday Morning and make it to church on a regular basis, you know, become practicing Xtians instead of practicing Xtian-Fascists.

From the man who loves getting a good hiney-lickin' from those who surround him...greatest (lyin') hits 2000:

in a calculated political move, has decided to tap crude oil from the strategic petroleum reserve. ...

But releasing oil from the strategic petroleum reserve also leaves our country even more vulnerable to foreign suppliers, including Saddam Hussein. Every barrel of strategic reserve we release today for political reasons is one less barrel we have for threats to our nation's security. The strategic reserve is meant for a foreign war, or a major I disruption in supply, not for national elections. It's a petroleum reserve, not a political reserve.

President Bush, saying "gas prices are on our mind," said today the government is again prepared to tap into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to alleviate any gas shortages caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

He called on Americans to "pitch in" and conserve gas by reducing non-essential travel, teaming up in carpools and using mass transit.

"Conservation may be a sign of personal virtue, but it is not a sufficient basis for a sound, comprehensive energy policy."

As I suspected, and I'm sure that many others did too, the oil companies cashed in big time after Katrina, especially those whose refinery and distribution networks were unaffected.

When the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline peaked at $3.07 recently, it was partly because the nation's refineries were getting an estimated 99 cents on each gallon sold. That was more than three times the amount they earned a year ago when regular unleaded was selling for $1.87.

The companies that pump oil from the ground swept in an additional 47 cents on each gallon, a 46 percent jump over the same period.

If motorists are the big losers in the spectacular run-up in gas prices, the companies that produce the oil and turn it into gasoline are the clear winners. By contrast, the truckers who transport gasoline, the companies that operate pipelines and the gas station owners have profited far less.

Because as the man who has his hand up Beloved Leaders rectum says, "Conservation...what a virtue, now back my armored SUV up here and get me out of this damn hospital".

Yo, all my vet buddies out there, and there seem to be a lot of you...anyone interested in starting a group blog by vets and soon-to-be vets?

I have some space on another domain, an installed and working Moveable Type install and it's idle right now. I'd be happy to talk to you.

You know where to reach me. If you have a blog now, and want to "cross post", that's fine too.

1. OMG it's the OSPREY
   
2. Another fine mess you've gotten us into, Mister Preznit
   
3. Whitewash, Inc.
   
4. Bunnypants Love
   
5. Missed the Memo
   
6. The March in DC
   
7. PowerTools
   
8. Delay indicted
   
9. Yeeeah. OOOkay.
   
10. Main and Central