Those people weren't really hungry, after all

According to the UK's Mirror, the U.S. is going to be destroying MREs contributed to the Katrina relief effort:

The Ministry of Defence in London said last night that 400,000 operational ration packs had been shipped to the US.

But officials blamed the US Department of Agriculture, which impounded the shipment under regulations relating to the import and export of meat.

However, these MREs would be considered perfectly fine if consumed as NATO rations:

"Under NATO, American soldiers are also entitled to eat such rations, yet the starving of the American South will see them go up in smoke because of FDA red tape madness."

Shipments from Spain and Italy have also been condemned as "unfit for human consumption", according to the Mirror, as well as "housands of gallons of pear juice" from Israel which is also due to be destroyed as "unfit".

Way to go guys -- that's really going to make us popular in the eyes of the rest of the world, not that we were popular to begin with. I'll tell you what's "unfit for humans" -- the goddamn Bush White House, that's what.

Damndest stuff, part 2: Project Pluto

THIS is such a whacked-out idea, I'm suprised BushCo hasn't dug it back out and tryed to update it.

Project Pluto, as conceived, would have been a locomotive-sized nuclear missle, but instead of a single warhead or even a MIRV it would have had a number of bombs it would drop, making it more of an unmanned bomber. Traveling at Mach 3 at "just treetop level" to avoid detection on radar, it would leave behind it a trail of radioactive fallout spewed out of its engine nozzle. When it finally ran out of bombs, it could just fly around, spewing radioactive material, until it finally crashed (and would then be a kind of "dirty bomb", contaminating the crash site).

Research went as far as testing the engine, though flight tests were never done (one idea had the missle flying in a big circle, attached to a tether, like a wire-controlled model plane), and it was ultimately abandoned due to developments in ICBM technology... and the realization of just HOW whacked-out the idea was.

The SF writer Charles Stross has done a "novelette" incorporating the Project Pluto idea; it's on-line here..

I find the DAMNDEST stuff sometimes...

such as the Convair Pye Wacket, an air-to-air missile that looks like a flying saucer and is named after a witch's cat.

Ah, the joys of browsing the Internets.

Hat in hand...

... Bush once again goes before the UN, to plead for "compassion for the needy" (*guffaw*) and yet more assistance with The (Whatever We're Calling It Now) On Terrorism.

The CNN story ends with:

The president's attendance at the U.N. meetings came as leaders were being presented with a plan for addressing poverty and reforming the world body, which the Bush administration has long viewed as ineffective bureaucracy in dire need of a management overhaul.

Yeah, because, after all, BushCo knows an ineffective bureaucracy with poor management when they see it.

Why buy 'em if we don't use 'em?

The folks who've been drooling ever since 1945 over the idea of using nuclear weapons are at it again:

A new draft US defense paper calls for preventive nuclear strikes against state and non-state adversaries in order to deter them from using weapons of mass destruction and urges US troops to "prepare to use nuclear weapons effectively."

While the paper hasn't been signed into effect by Rumsfeld yet, and therefore isn't official policy, this particular bit is noteworthy for its expansion of nuclear use:

They could be used, for instance, to counter potentially overwhelming conventional adversaries, to secure a rapid end of a war on US terms, or simply "to ensure success of US and multinational operations," the document indicates.

Use to counter overwhelming conventional opposition isn't anything new; the U.S./NATO pretty much was ready to use tactical nuclear arms to stop a massive Soviet invasion of West Germany during the Cold War. However, "simply to ensure success ... of operations" basically is a blank check to use the damn things anywhere, any time, for any reason.

If this is signed into policy, we're treading dangerously close to not only being the only country to ever use nuclear weapons in warfare, but in setting a precedent for them to be used as just another weapon, thereby ensuring that they will be used again and again. Not something to be proud of.

Hiding the bodies

There's a lot of speculation right now on the final body count from the Katrina disaster. I've heard 10,000; 35,000; "not as high as 10,000"...

what I'm afraid will happen is the same thing that's happened with the Iraqi casualties -- that the numbers will come out in dribs and drabs, making it that much harder to challenge the ultimately low-balled "final" count that the Feds will approve.

And, of course, as with Iraq, any of us who go back through the news stories and count up a number closer to the truth will be accused of "inflating the numbers for political purposes".

Let's not and say we did

Once again I find myself talking about Springer On The Radio.

It's not that I have a problem with Mr. Springer; it's just the thing on AAR I listen to while driving in to work. Unfortuantely, though, I had to take exception to him this morning. While discussing with a caller Bush's appointment of the totally unqualified Mike Brown to head FEMA, Jerry said something about giving Bush "the benefit of the doubt".

I'm sorry. The man has been in office for five years now; it's beyond time to stop giving him the benefit of anything. Is it just too politically incorrect these days to demand the slightest amount of responsibilty and accountability from those in power? If he can't be bothered to even take a look at the credentials for someone appointed to a job as important as FEMA director, AFTER 9/11 FOR GOD'S SAKE, he should be at the very least impeached.