Iraq in a nutshell

...dammit, I was supposed to do this earlier today, but here it is, courtesy Four Legs Good from Eschaton:



The face of what's going on in Iraq right now.

And actually it's a good thing I waited 'cause THIS is what Preznit BubbleBoy had to say in his speech today:

"We can expect the coming days will be intense. Iraq remains a serious situation. But I'm optimistic," Bush said in a wide-ranging speech defending his strategy in that war-torn country and the global fight against terrorism.

He has no. fricking. clue.

Well, NOW it's all clear

Isn't it strange, as The Preznit himself remarked today, that we have a Texas oilman out there complaining about America's "addiction to oil" and that we need to Do Something About It? (Nemmind the federal funding for alternative energy research has been cut.)

The last paragraph of the news story makes it clear what's going on here:

Bush reiterated his call for building more U.S. nuclear power plants as an energy alternative to expensive natural gas. "I think it makes sense to do so," he said.

Oh, goody! Sure as hell I'm going to trust the White House that's given us Enron, 9/11, Iraq and Katrina to revive the nuclear power industry. Jeez, I can't see HOW that could POSSIBLY be a bad thing!Daaah, and OBVIOUSLY what we need in this booga-booga Nuclear Dirty Bomb Terrorist age is, of course, more nuclear waste being produced. (And think of it - it's all being shipped to one location. One Stop Shopping for all your radiological incident needs.)

And I for one welcome our new face-shooting overlords

Man shot by Cheney gets hospital discharge

"My family and I are deeply sorry for all that Vice President Cheney and his family have had to go through this week," Whittington said.

Well, sheesh, thank god he has proper compassion for the VP and what that poor man has been through. /snark

I can't help but wonder if Cheney has even offered to pay any of Wittington's hospital bills. It would at least be a start for being truly responsible for what he did.

Cheney ain't no Spiderman

Well, Shotgun Dick came out on FAUX yesterday and accepted, well, he never said the word "responsibility", so I'm still not sure WHAT he took, but he's the guy who SHOT AN OLD MAN IN THE FACE, fersure.

As others have said, since we all know there'll be no consequence to Cheney for what he's done (as there has never been with anyone in this misAdministration), the admission of (whatever) is essentially meaningless. As Norman Solomon put it:

In almost every instance when a politician "takes responsibility" with great fanfare, there's no penalty attached to the proclamation. Across the terrain of political media, the I-take-responsibility maneuver is the equivalent of a hit-and-run driver offering an over-the-shoulder yell of "Sorry about that" while speeding away from a grisly scene.

And, much as certain folks would like to pretend this is all much ado about nothing and that it's just a mere accident in a private life, it's more than that. It IS a matter of responsibility AND accountability. When someone with Cheney's authority can't see clear to be held accountable for an accident like this, what's he doing one step away from the big red nuclear button?


"You can talk about all the other conditions that existed at the time, but that's the bottom line. . . You can't blame anybody else. I'm the guy who pushed the button and destroyed the world. It's a day I'll never forget."

"With great power, comes great responsiblity!" -- Peter Parker

"Go f*ck yourself!" -- Dick Cheney

I crawled, I walked...

In an effort to make it look like they aren't sticking pins into maps of Iran, making explosion noises and cackling gleefully, the White House is allocating money to aiding "democracy" in Iran:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- President Bush wants $75 million to try to spur democracy in its adversary Iran, expanding a program that skeptics say can have little effect in the Islamic republic.

"The United States will actively confront the aggressive policies of the Iranian regime. At the same time, we will work to support the aspirations of the Iranian people for freedom and democracy in their country," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told a congressional budget hearing.

Oh, I'm sure they'll be plenty glad to hear that, considering the last time they had democratic elections the U.S. overthrew their government and installed the Shah 'cause they were, well, acting a little TOO free and sovereign with all that oil.

And they want to make it clear we don't have a problem with the Iranian people:

But the Bush administration has emphasized in recent weeks that it is not at odds with the people of Iran and said it wants to help them win freedoms from their government.

Of course, we, and they, might remember what happened last time he professed undying support for people in the Middle East...

Many Iraqis can hear me tonight in a translated radio broadcast, and I have a message for them. If we must begin a military campaign, it will be directed against the lawless men who rule your country and not against you. As our coalition takes away their power, we will deliver the food and medicine you need. We will tear down the apparatus of terror and we will help you to build a new Iraq that is prosperous and free. In a free Iraq, there will be no more wars of aggression against your neighbors, no more poison factories, no more executions of dissidents, no more torture chambers and rape rooms. The tyrant will soon be gone. The day of your liberation is near.

A chicken in every pot, a terrorist under every bed

Looks like that whole "defeating terrorism in our lifetime" thing's working out really well:

WASHINGTON - A government database of alleged international terrorism suspects or associates includes 325,000 names, four times more than when the central list was created in 2003, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday, citing counterterrorism officials.

The list maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center, or NCTC, contains far more names in a single government database than has previously been disclosed, the newspaper said.

The show so far

Okay, let's review -

Vice Preznit shoots hunting partner in face and upper body, from an unknown distance (30 feet? 30 yards?). Said partner is, according to the owner of the ranch, was ". . . fine. He was talking. His eyes were open. It didn't get in his eyes or anything like that."

Yesterday said partner has "minor heart attack" due to birdshot lodged in his heart.

Question is, if the original injuries were minor, as according to Ms. Armstrong, how did the shot manage to get near his heart? And why the extended stay in intensive care?

And I see Shotgun Dick's going to make his first public statements on the incident on Fox News later today. Oh, goody. I'm SURE we can trust them to get to the bottom of all this, seeing as how they're SOOOOO skeptical of the White House as it is.

Bang Bang Club

Well, how very interesting.

The Vice Preznit shoots a hunting companion in the face, it doesn't get reported for almost 24 hours, and when it does the terms "sprayed" and "peppered" are used to describe what happened.

What would the press reaction have been if, oh, say, Al Gore had done something similar?

Willfully misinterpreting a headline

I know what this really is about, but can't you just see it?

Bush urges end to cartoon violence



"We... must ACCEPT... *heh*! That TOM ... will never CATCH JERRY! And... we must think of ... the CHILDREN... when a CAT tries to blow a MOUSE up... *heh* with a stick of DYNAMITE!"

Paging Mr. Challenger...

...paging Mr. George E. Challenger...

'Lost world' found in Indonesian jungle

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- Scientists said on Tuesday that they had found a "Lost World" in an Indonesian mountain jungle, home to dozens of exotic new species of birds, butterflies, frogs and plants.

No dinosaurs, admittedly, but it's still cool.

(You know, it's probably best they DIDN'T find dinos, much as I'd like to see a modern-day G.E.C. parade Anklyodons and Pacycephalosaurs around Manhattan. All it'd do these days is turn out the fruitloop fundies who'd use it as "proof" that dinos & men lived at the same time and therefore Creationism is right. Or something like that.)

A quick note on the "cartoon riots"

I generally leave stuff that others have talked about more eloquently and with more authority alone, but this article by Robert Fisk makes a good point:

Besides, we can exercise our own hypocrisy over religious feelings. I happen to remember how, more than a decade ago, a film called The Last Temptation of Christ showed Jesus making love to a woman. In Paris, someone set fire to the cinema showing the movie, killing a young man.

I was living in Utah at the time "Last Temptation" came out, and there was a case there of a movie theater that had had its screen slashed for booking the movie. So please spare me the "look at those crazy Muslims" talk.

And as far as "freedom of speech" goes, I'm all for it, but, y'know, there ARE times when you should maybe probably just keep quiet and not rile people up. (Example: Holding a White Power rally in Jamaica, New York, is probably not a good idea, and you deserve what you get if you insist on doing it anyway.) To take an already bad situation involving comments about "crusades", pre-emptive invasions, "special rendition", torture and long-standing prejudices and throw gasoline on the fire this way is stupid at best. (And there's always the possibility that someone is benefitting from hatred being fostered like this.)

Lies lies lies, yeah...

You know, it's too bad the Stones were at the football game thingy the other day and not the Who, 'cause we could really use a chorus of "Won't Get Fooled Again" right about now:

WASHINGTON (AP) - Iran used negotiations with the European Union to play for time and has now achieved the ability to both develop nuclear weapons and deliver them, a senior Bush administration official said Monday.

At a news conference at the Foreign Press Center, Robert G. Joseph, the undersecretary of state for arms control, cited "tremendous resources" as well as a "very sophisticated, a very advanced scientific and technical community" as helpful to Iran.

Here we go again. In spite of the CIA evaluations that Iran is, at best, five years minimum from even being capable to build nuclear weapons (more like TEN years, according to last year's National Intelligence Estimate), we're now going to get fed the line that Iran is on the verge of CONQUERING THE WHOLE WORLD with their massive nuclear arsenal if WE DON'T DO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW. In other words, much the same line of BS we were fed on Iraq.

I'm not arguing that a nuclear armed Iran would be a good thing. I'm agin' nuclear weapons; it's just too tempting to use them, and they're useless from a military standpoint anway. But the idea that, much as we went through fifty-some-odd years of nuclear standoff with the Soviets with the Constitution relatively intact only to be now told that small bands of men with IEDs and boxcutters demand an Imperial Preznitcy and police-state-like powers, we're being told that one country with nuclear weapons will be a threat to the ENTIRE WORLD, regardless of the nuclear retaliation that the U.S., Israel, France, Britain, Russia etc. could deliver on it. (Of course, we'll be told Iran will give nuclear weapons to terrorists, ignoring the fact that they're still able to possibly purchase relatively sophisticated ready-made warheads from Russia, given the half-assed attempt the U.S. has made to assist Russia in controlling its nuclear arsenal.)

(Credit to Attaturk at Rising Hegemon for the article reference.)

(And yes, I know the Thompson Twins reference doesn't fit with the Who reference in the first paragraph. I plead literary license. See, I've got my literary license in my wallet here, right next to my library card...)

More "Shut Up!" from those in power

Well, Alberto "Torturemada" Gonzalez is getting - well, not grilled 'cause that implies he's feeling pressure, but asked questions about the NSA spying program only us silly moonbats are worried about, today. Not under oath, as par the course.

Gonzales plans to say the program "provides the United States with the early warning system we so desperately needed on September 10 [2001]."

Strange - I thought we HAD early warning of 9/11, and those who should have paid attention didn't. Or does "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in The USA" and having an FBI informant living with two of the hijackers not count as "early warning"?

Special Guest Star General Hayden showed up on the Sunday chat shows this past weekend to reiterate his "limited program" line:

"When NSA goes after the content of a communication under this authorization from the president, the NSA has already established its reasons for being interested in that specific communication," Hayden told "Fox News Sunday."

"I've said in other places this isn't a drift net over Lackawanna or Freemont or Dearborn, grabbing all communications and then sifting them out."

Well, that's interesting, 'cause there's a story in USA Today today which says not only that the telecomms were involved in the spying but that there are information choke points which would make intercepting everything easier:

A majority of international calls are handled by long-distance carriers AT&T, MCI and Sprint. All three own "gateway" switches capable of routing calls to points around the globe.

and they're more than happy to help!

Technicians work with phone company officials to intercept communications pegged to a particular person or phone number. Telecommunications executives say MCI, AT&T and Sprint grant the access to their systems without warrants or court orders. Instead, they are cooperating on the basis of oral requests from senior government officials.

And, of course, the obligatory "nothing to worry about" line from the General:

If the U.S. end of a communication has nothing to do with terrorism, the identity of the party is suppressed and the content of the communication destroyed, Hayden has said.

Yeah, that's really reassuring. Until, as I keep pointing out, you realize this is the government that associates vegans, Quakers and anti-war protesters with terrorism.

I'm glad they're on top of things

Yesterday's headline in our local paper, "The State":

U.S. military to shift focus to cope with terrorist threat, plan reveals

Admittedly this is the QDR, the Quadrennial Defense Review, which is why it seems kind of, well, behind the times. But doesn't it make it sound like they've been screwing around ever since 2001 and are just now waking up?

The military is going to be "lighter and faster", according to the report; unfortunately, that's what they've been saying since, oh, the 1980s. The folks at the defense contractors will be happy to hear they don't intend to drop any of the more expensive weapons systems, though:

The Pentagon plans to strengthen its special-operations forces to fight terrorists and insurgents in the coming decades, but it won't increase the military's ground forces or eliminate any of its most expensive weapons programs, according to a long-range plan released Friday.

And ground troops? Well, according to the QDR, we won't need as many. But there are those saying otherwise:

Daniel Goure, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, a public policy research group in Arlington, Va., questioned whether the military would have enough ground troops.

[snip]

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, questioned whether the military would have enough troops.

[snip]

But Michele Flournoy, a Pentagon official in the Clinton administration, said that one of the fundamental lessons of Iraq is that the military needs a large ground force to occupy a country.

[snip]

Lawrence J. Korb, who was the Pentagon's top personnel official in the Reagan administration, advocates increasing the Army by 86,000 soldiers.

Am I seeing a pattern here? After all, as Mr. Flournoy points out, one of the reasons for the miserable situation in Iraq at the moment was not enough troops to start with, thus not enough security. (Of course, NOT INVADING in the first place might have been a good idea, too.) This was, after all, supposed to be the military which, according to previous QDRs, would be able to fight two Iraq-type wars simultaneously and win both. Now it looks like Genius Rummy's grand idea of a lighter "info-war" military is going to be official policy, up until the point, of course, where it's proved to be the scam it was all along.

Oh, and if things DO go all pear-shaped and we're stuck for more soldiers?

"The QDR could authorize the Army to go up to a million soldiers. But we're having trouble recruiting 482,000," said Andrew F. Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who recently authored a study for the Pentagon that described the Army as being stretched thin by Iraq.

Anyone feel a draft?

Dammit!

'Grandpa Munster' Al Lewis Dies at 95

NEW YORK - Al Lewis, the cigar-chomping patriarch of "The Munsters" whose work as a basketball scout, restaurateur and political candidate never eclipsed his role as Grandpa from the television sitcom, died after years of failing health. He was 95.

And we lose another articulate voice on the Left. Back when I lived on Long Island I listened to him several times on WBAI; he was a great ranter and a great source of info on the old days of Left politics. (You'll notice the Yahoo article doesn't mention politics beyond Lewis' failed run for NY Governor against Pataki.)

Rest in peace, "Grandpa".

All I've got to say about the Superbowl

Honest to god, it's just a game and I don't get the yearly obsession with the damn thing (not that I have any deep love for football in the first place), but this is amusing:

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- ABC is putting a five-second defensive line between the Super Bowl and television viewers.

The tape delay, for the game itself as well as the pre-game, halftime and post-game entertainment, is an apparent echo of the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" that marred the 2004 broadcast on CBS.

And predictably, the social conservatives over at the Parents Television Council are doin' a little end-zone Kulturkampf victory dance:

"ABC has wisely decided to ensure that this year's Super Bowl is not hijacked by raunchy performers as it was in 2004," said L. Brent Bozell, PTC president. "Now, we hope that millions of families can safely watch this family program without the worry of seeing inappropriate sexual content or hearing vulgar language."

Yeah, 'cause I can't think of anything more "family" than 'roided-up men in tight Lycra (tm) pants crashing into each other while using military jargon.

Violence good, nipples bad, evidently.

To war, to war...

we're going to be going to war:

VIENNA, Austria (CNN) -- A top Iranian official said Saturday his country will resume full nuclear-enrichment activities after the nuclear watchdog agency voted to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program.

And who's heading the Security Council but that shining beacon of diplomacy, that statesman of statesmen, that lil' scamp John Bolton!


"Rassin' frassin' varmints better stop that processin' afore I blow your heads clean off'n your bodies!"

It's all fun'n games until someone gets their country nuked.

Mini-snarks

*Remember that $70 billion that the White House had requested for Iraq and Afghanistan? Well, it's more like $120 billion. And reconstruction? Well, that's extra.

*A protester disrupted a Rumsfeld speech at a press luncheon yesterday, the same one where he made an apparent attempt to equate Chavez with Hitler. ('cause, you see, both were elected. That's it, folks.) Not only did the presenter apologize to Rumsfeld for his free speech being curtailed (um, yeah, right?) but as the protestor, World Can’t Wait’s Heather Hurwitz, was being escorted out, one of the attendees can be heard to yell "Shut up!" Which, I guess, is pretty much the philosophy of America these days - free speech for those in power and a big "shut up!" to the rest of us.

Preznit William Hearst

"You furnish the pictures, and I'll furnish the war"

From The Guardian, Feb. 2, 2006:

· Mr Bush told the Mr Blair that the US was so worried about the failure to find hard evidence against Saddam that it thought of "flying U2 reconnaissance aircraft planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colours". Mr Bush added: "If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of UN resolutions]".

Well, aside from the question of whether or not disguising U.S. planes like that would be a violation of the rules of war, it would seem to put U.N. observers under even more danger than they already face. I realize, as far as Bush is concered, U.N. representatives aren't really "people" in the first place, but the idea that he was so gung-ho on attacking Iraq and so lacking in justification for it really points up what a sociopath this man actually is.

Still more priorities

The Preznit also had some nice words to say in the SOTU about alternative energy and freeing America from a dependence on Middle East oil:

Keeping America competitive requires affordable energy. And here we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil, which is often imported from unstable parts of the world. The best way to break this addiction is through technology.

Well, not only is the White House backpedaling on reducing oil imports from the Middle East:

Asked why the president used the words "the Middle East" when he didn't really mean them, one administration official said Bush wanted to dramatize the issue in a way that "every American sitting out there listening to the speech understands."

(a day after the Saudi ambassador got a bit testy and said he'd have to ask Bush "what he exactly meant by that") but the White House is also going to be cutting funding for, guess what, alternative energy:

The Energy Department will begin laying off researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the next week or two because of cuts to its budget.

A veteran researcher said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol. Those are two of the technologies that Mr. Bush cited on Tuesday night as holding the promise to replace part of the nation's oil imports.

The budget for the laboratory, which is just west of Denver, was cut by nearly 15 percent, to $174 million from $202 million, requiring the layoff of about 40 staff members out of a total of 930, said a spokesman, George Douglas. The cut is for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1.

One would almost think the SOTU was just an empty collection of feel-good rhetoric that the Preznit would never follow up on. But that would be being cynical.

Second bonus snark for the day - the WH Energy Secretary is a putz:

But when asked why Mr. Bush had not called on the public to sacrifice to reduce oil consumption, Samuel W. Bodman, the energy secretary, said in a conference call with reporters on Wednesday that "many Americans believe they're already sacrificing by paying the prices they're paying for gasoline and heating oil and natural gas."

Guffaw! Guffaw! Those gas prices are so high! Know what I mean? What? Fuel efficency standards? Pshaw! Record profits for the oil companies? Why, nothing more than coincidence, I tells ya. Just keep moving there, citizen... nothing to see here...


"Where's my damn sour-cream and butter sandwich, you rotten prole? Talk about sacrifices!"

More priorities

Well, having been down the last week with a case of gout, I haven't been following the news as closely as I might have. No, I didn't watch the SOTU the other night; it was a choice between it and an edition of Dirty Jobs, and naturellment I chose the grime, feces and garbage that was on Discovery rather than that on CNN.

Anyway, I did notice that the Preznit had some nice things to say about rising medical costs and education. So what's his party doing today? Cutting Medicaid and student loans, of course.

"Once again, House Republicans are on record as defending budget discipline," said Acting Majority Leader Roy Blunt, R-Mo. "We have achieved $39 billion in savings, while streamlining government."

Well, after all, that's $39 billion saved, right? Proves the GOP are actually responsible spenders, right?

Oh, wait, I guess not:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House has told Congress to expect requests for about $70 billion in additional funding for the ongoing budget year for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and $18 billion more for hurricane relief, a Senate GOP aide says.

Lesse... $39 billion "saved" and $100 billion spent equals... $61 billion more than before they "achieved savings". Gosh. More Bizarro math - "us spend more so us saved money!"

I know this isn't unique - it's the same damn shell game they've been pulling for the last five years. It's just that one thinks, maybe, just maybe, someone in the media would - I dunno - call them on it?

Oh, and special bonus from CNN.com: Rummy wants us to know the bad guys still want to kill us all:

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Despite progress in fighting terrorism, the threat today may be greater than ever before because the available weapons are far more dangerous, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said Thursday.

So what the hell have you clowns been doing for the last four-some-odd years, then? I thought we were safer than before, what with the terraists all flypapered down in Iraq and spying on al-Qaeda and the PATRIOT Act and stuff. Make up your damn minds already.