How NOT to Be Democrats

How moronic and patronizing can the National Socialist Review be?

Enough to write crap like this:

[I]t is time for Democrats to start the effort to bring their party back to the center, and a key element in this effort will be for some high-profile Democrat to pick a very public, very nasty fight with Michael Moore, and begin the process of expunging the Moore virus (symptom: rabid rhetoric) from the party's body politic.

I realize the Democrats aren't inclined to take advice from a guy like me. And I realize that Republicans will react to this advice by saying, "Shhhhh! What, do you want the Democrats to come out of the wilderness before 2024?" But this needs to be said, whether any Democrat will pick up this sword or not.

Golly, I thought we already had Joe Lieberman for that purpose?

Here's my advice to the NRO writing staff.

1. Stop gravy training off your batshit insane mothers. (Jonah).

2. Save up your meagre salary so you can afford to have a sexual experience. (K-Lo)

3. Attempt a personality transplant (Everybody) as well as dental work (O'Beirne)

4. Just give it up and have yourself some time as "the catcher" (Derbyshire)

5. Try Skinless Chicken (Podhoretz)

6. Try using your keyboard with two hands (Lowry)

7. Watch something besides Star Trek (Jonah again)

The Big Propoganda Lie

One of the true discomforting things that the right-wing is especially good at, is creating the big, bold, loud, repeated and repeated lie like a mantra. The lie then becomes part of the national conscience to such an extent that it is believed reflexively by a majority of sheeple, even when the truth comes out.

The latest exhibit of this is the death of Pat Tillman, former NFL football player, who like his brother joined the Army Rangers in the wake of September 11th.

Tillman was praised and respected for his decision, as he gave up a sizeable NFL paycheck for his decision. Tillman was a solid, but not spectacular NFL player, but definitely was likely to earn several years of six-figure to low seven-figure salaries in the league and in that context his choice was certainly admirable.

Tillman was subsequently killed in April 2004 while serving in Afghanistan.

In the days following his death, he was all but beatified by those wanting to grasp on to a notable hearing making a sacrificed. Ignored in the need to bleat was the fact that Tillman was an athiest/agnostic who would probably be either horified or to say the least bemused at his national sanctification.

Hosanas were sung to his name, and for once a dead soldier was given all the power and the glory of the Republic upon him, another thing that was frankly repulsive (through no fault of Tillman) as approximately 1,500 soldiers have died between the two countries and the Bush White House will not even allowed their flag-draped caskets to be shown. Politicians, particularly Republicans could not wait to cry for him.

The military quickly seized the moment to create a mythology about his death, one that is now fixed in the marrow of so many people it will likely never be tempered.

Just days after Pat Tillman died from friendly fire on a desolate ridge in southeastern Afghanistan, the U.S. Army Special Operations Command released a brief account of his last moments.

The April 30, 2004, statement awarded Tillman a posthumous Silver Star for combat valor and described how a section of his Ranger platoon came under attack.

"He ordered his team to dismount and then maneuvered the Rangers up a hill near the enemy's location," the release said. "As they crested the hill, Tillman directed his team into firing positions and personally provided suppressive fire. . . . Tillman's voice was heard issuing commands to take the fight to the enemy forces."

It was also a distorted and incomplete narrative, according to dozens of internal Army documents obtained by The Washington Post that describe Tillman's death by fratricide after a chain of botched communications, a misguided order to divide his platoon over the objection of its leader and undisciplined firing by fellow Rangers.

The Army's public release made no mention of friendly fire, even though at the time it was issued, investigators in Afghanistan had already taken at least 14 sworn statements from Tillman's platoon members that made clear the true causes of his death. The statements included a searing account from the Ranger nearest Tillman during the firefight, who quoted him as shouting "Cease fire! Friendlies!" with his last breaths. Army records show Tillman fought bravely during his final battle. He followed orders, never wavered and at one stage proposed discarding his heavy body armor, apparently because he wanted to charge a distant ridge occupied by the enemy, an idea his immediate superior rejected, witness statements show.

But the Army's published account not only withheld all evidence of fratricide, but also exaggerated Tillman's role and stripped his actions of their context. Tillman was not one of the senior commanders on the scene -- he directed only himself, one other Ranger and an Afghan militiaman, under supervision from others. And witness statements in the Army's files at the time of the news release describe Tillman's voice ringing out on the battlefield mainly in a desperate effort, joined by other Rangers on his ridge, to warn comrades to stop shooting at their own men.

The Army's April 30 news release was just one episode in a broader Army effort to manage the uncomfortable facts of Pat Tillman's death, according to internal records and interviews. During several weeks of memorials and commemorations that followed Tillman's death, commanders at his 75th Ranger Regiment and their superiors hid the truth about friendly fire from Tillman's brother Kevin, who had fought with Pat in the same platoon, but was not involved in the firing incident and did not know the cause of his brother's death. Commanders also withheld the facts from Tillman's widow, his parents, national politicians and the public, according to records and interviews with sources involved in the case.

In the meantime, the national mythology movement has acted. Corporal Tillman's admirable service, but unfortunate death, have been respectively over-exploited and ignored.

How many times has the press in this country fallen for this bullshit from the Bush Administration and the Pentagon, and how much longer will it do so.

Probably forever.

Baghdad Bob isn't so funny anymore is he?

But will there be "Boobies"?

Well, the blogosphere was a nice place until the Establishment got involved.

Look who has a blog now! The Mutt & Jeff of the 'Chicago School'.

New internet blogboy number one is conservative jurist Richard Posner, certainly an intellectual and respectible person, though I frequently disagree with him. He's a winter and I'm a spring!

New internet blogboy number two is Gary Becker, a Nobel Prize winning economist of the University of Chicago, who naturally is a conservative economist. Professor Becker is one of those who thinks the market should dictate all sorts of stuff. Unfortunately, the market appears to have dictated Professer Becker not get laid much.

Together they have joined together to form, what I would guess will be, the MOST BORING BLOG EVER!

Just kidding you old coots. The name you picked out for your blog, The Becker-Posner Blog, seems a harbinger of dynamism and creativity.

They apparently intend to blog something new every Monday, which means that they are already making a major mistake. Everybody knows, your quality bloggers put up pictures of their cats on Friday.

Meet The New Boss--Same As The Old Boss

Call me uninspired. I've never been much for the Dale Carnegie approach to answering questions--saying the person's name as a preface to the answer--so I probably didn't give Ol' Harry Reid, the new Senate minority leader much of a chance in his first appearance on Meet the Press as minority leader. That said, I was un-im-pressed, not just with his style but with some of the content of his answers.

Style? Let's just say he was in tone and manner like his predecessor. In fact he was in tone and bearing a lot like Hatch and Frist, among others. Charismatic is not an adjective I would use to describe Senator Reid. Now maybe the test of a good (we can't hope for great can we?) minority leader is in the work he does that we don't see, so time will tell.

Content? Some good:

RUSSERT: When the president talked about Yucca Mountain and moving the nation's nuclear waste there, you were very, very, very strong in your words. You said, "President Bush is a liar. He betrayed Nevada, and he betrayed the country."

Is that rhetoric appropriate?

REID: I don't know if that rhetoric was appropriate. That's how I feel, and that's how I felt.

I think that -- take that issue, Tim, to take the most poisonous substance known to man, plutonium, and haul 70,000 tons of it across the highways and railways of this country, past schools and churches and people's businesses, is wrong. It's something that is being forced upon this country by the utilities, and it's wrong. And we have to stop it.

And people may not like what I said, but I said it, and I don't back off one bit.

Some, WTF?

This was the Associated Press about Harry Reid: "He voted with the Republicans to ban a procedure that opponents call partial-birth abortion. And in 1999, he was one of two Senate Democrats who voted against an amendment expressing support for the Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion."

Would you prefer to see the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, which allows legal abortions across the country?

REID: Tim, I have -- my views on abortion are very clear. I never tried to hide them. I think it's something that people understand about me.

But I also understand that this is a very complicated issue, very difficult issue. And, you know, in our caucus, our Democratic caucus, we have wide-ranging views. My sister, I don't have a sister, but as close as I have ever had to a sister is Barbara Boxer. Her views and my views differ.

But, you know, we don't have a litmus test with Senate Democrats. We don't do the so-called Specter test: You have to agree with us, or we won't let you be a chairman of the committee or subcommittee. We don't do that.

And so, I say that this is an issue that is not likely going to be resolved in the Congress of the United States. I think what we should do is all work toward reducing the number of unwanted pregnancies, unintended pregnancies. I think we should do that. That would, of course, lead to fewer abortions. That should be a goal we all have.

And I think that this matter will be resolved. The Supreme Court has wrestled with this for years and years. And as you know, they're having a difficult time coming up with what should or shouldn't be done.

RUSSERT: What would happen, do you think, in the country if Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court?

REID: Oh, I think it would be a little -- it would be pretty difficult for everybody. So, I think -- and that's why the Supreme Court has wrestled with it.

Even sublime:

Again, Harry Reid on National Public Radio, November 19: "If they" -- the Bush White House -- "for example, gave us Clarence Thomas as chief justice, I personally feel that would be wrong. If they gave us Antonin Scalia, that's a little different question. I may not agree with some of his decisions, but I agree with the brilliance of his mind."

Could you support Antonin Scalia to be chief justice of the Supreme Court?

REID: If he can overcome the ethics problems that have arisen since he was selected as a justice of the Supreme Court. And those ethics problems, you've talked about them, every reporter has talked about them in town, where he took trips that were probably not in keeping with the code of judicial ethics. So we have to get over this.

I cannot dispute the fact, as I have said, that this is one smart guy. And I disagree with many of the results that he arrives at, but his reason for arriving at those results are very hard to dispute.

Now I may come back to some of the other nonsense (like Bill Frist is a great guy, and what a public servant) and will definitely post on Supreme Court vacancies later, but I gotta tell you, these takes on abortion and Scalia are, well, out of step with where I think the party is right now.

I'm sure it is like herding cats and all, and even agree in principal with the big tent theory on important issues. Reducing the number of abortions isn't a bad idea (although they have gone up during Bush's four years) but, and this is a big one folks, he is saying that he doesn't agree with Roe v. Wade. If Roe was overturned it would be "pretty difficult"? You have got to be kidding me. I suppose back alleys are better for that sort of thing, huh Harry?

About Scalia he says you may not agree ith him but boy is that guy smart. Listen, the guy is probably the most divisive justice in the last half century and isn't bashful about saying some not-so-smart stuff, not to mention flying in a private plane to go on a junket with a party-litigant in a case pending before the Court, who happens to be the Vice Preznit.

Well lets just say this blogboy is going to be watching intently the gentleman from Nevada as he carries out his solemn obligation to institution and party.

Mimi Mingalingadingdong vs. Borders

Screaming Mimi is going after intelligent debate on borders now that she has attacked intelligent foreign policy and attacked people with multiple names (several actors must be excited about the possibility of some attention from Mingaloolabadabing that might help get them some publicity)!

Of course, my new catch phrase comes from her. Seriously. Mimi writes that "political correctness is the handmaiden of terrorism." Since I have never believed in political correctness... Really and truly, dear readers. I believe that political corrrectness originated among progressives and liberals making fun of the people who wanted to so correctly pronounce Managua that they purposely distorted "aaaagggwwwwaaa." It was fun. We realized that we had to make fun of each other and not take things too seriously. We all know that the Reaganites and the right-wing (not to mention the nut-wing) made political hay out of this notion of correctness.

So, my new catch phrase is that "Conservative correctness if the hausfrau of small minds." Maybe it will catch on. Surely, it is more insightful than our pal Mimi. At least I will not make fun of people with multiple names.

And Now a Non-Political Message of Personal Pain!

Oh, Vikings, Vikings, you are breaking my heart!!









Again.

Are You Trying To Tell Us Something MoDo?

First Bobo on Saturday publishes a truly bizarre op-ed that Attaturk discussed. Now we have MoDo kvetching about why she hates Christmas. There are lots of reasons to hate Christmas: the consumerism, non-stop advertising, music, and nightly news about how we owe it to the economy to shop till we drop.

But MoDo turns it into a pathetic rant becasue she has lovingly chosen great gifts for ex-boyfriends all of whom dumped her for someone else. And to top it off, the worst of the self loathing is her grim realization that stress causes pre-mature aging.

I think it has to do with how stressed out my mom and sister would get on Christmas Day when I was little. I remember them snapping at me; they seemed tense because of all the aprons to be sashed and potatoes to be mashed. (In our traditional Irish household, women slaved and men were waited on.)

It might be exacerbated by the stress I feel when I think of all the money I've spent on lavishing boyfriends with presents over the years, guys who are now living with other women who are enjoying my lovingly picked out presents which I'm no doubt still paying for in credit card interest charges.

I was embracing my Christmas black dog the other day when I read a Times article so scary it made my hair - and my genes - curl.

It was about how severe stress can make a woman age very rapidly and prematurely, looking years older than her chronological age, because the stress causes the DNA in our cells to shrink, and sort of curl down on itself, until the cells can no longer replicate. "When people are under stress they look haggard, it's like they age before your eyes, and here's something going on at a molecular level" that reflects that impression, said one of the researchers, Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California at San Francisco.

Just think, she gets paid a lot of money for that. Sounds like MoDo could use a Guiness with old BoBo.

We sure Broke the Backs of the Insurgency

Naturally, this story comes from the foreign press -- waiting for a Freeper to tell me that the Australian Government and Press is a bunch of anti-Americans:

ROBERT Hill has learnt first-hand the new perils involved in visiting strife-torn Baghdad.

Such has been the escalation of violence in the run-up to the January 30 elections that for the first time in four visits, the Defence Minister could not make it to the centre of the Iraqi capital last Friday.

So dangerous has the main highway to and from the airport become, with daily suicide bomb attacks, he did not visit the Australian embassy or the Green Zone that comprises the headquarters of the US-led coalition forces in Iraq.

"This is the first time I've been unable to do that. It's very dangerous - a number of countries are no longer travelling along it," Senator Hill told The Australian yesterday

.

...

"It's a more dangerous place than it's been since the downfall of Saddam's regime. The insurgency is really quite intensive and extensive."

Instead of making the hazardous run into the city, Senator Hill travelled in an armoured convoy to the US-run Camp Victory, a short distance from Baghdad airport.

Wonderful. I'm sure at that time he was told that things are going great in Baghdadgrad, Fallujahgrad, and Mosulgrad.

Hell Freezes over, Major Media Outlet admits the power of a Progressive Blog

After weeks of having some major media outlets decry the lack of journalistic ethics on blogs, there is actually a story in the Washington Post that demonstrates the stupidity of such claims.

Public affairs officers at the top U.S military headquarters in Baghdad produced the 59-page Microsoft PowerPoint presentation titled, "Telling the Fallujah Story to the World." It is the first such effort distributed by the headquarters, said one of its creators, Army Maj. Scott R. Bleichwehl.

It comes as the U.S. military is trying to step up "strategic communications" in Iraq, after being heavily criticized, internally and by outside experts, for failing to get its message to the Iraqi people and the world in general.

The military briefing, an electronic slide show that has rocketed around the Internet over the last week, can be read at Soldiers for the Truth (www.sftt.org) and other Web sites, frequently with comments such as, "Why is the DOD not getting this information to the media?" Another version of the briefing was released Friday by the Pentagon and is reachable at www.dod.mil/transcripts/2004/tr20041203-1721.html.

Yes, they are trying to get the "truth" out in the Bush Department DOD. The Post never mentions this little matter from a recent L.A. Times report, which our blog discussed a few days ago.

...some in the military argue that the efforts at better "strategic communication" sometimes cross the line into propaganda, citing some recent media briefings held in Iraq. During a Nov. 10 briefing by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, reporters were shown a video of Iraqi troops saluting their flag and singing the Iraqi national anthem.

"Pretty soon, we're going to have the 5 o'clock follies all over again, and it will take us another 30 years to restore our credibility," said a second senior Defense official, referring to the much-ridiculed daily media briefings in Saigon during the Vietnam War.

Juxtaposed against the military's attempt at propoganda is a fellow internet blogboy that runs the blog titled "Iraq in Pictures" www.fallujahinpictures.com, which Krohn says is far more similar to what Iraqis, and the Arab world, see on their satellite news channels.

Many of the photographs are far more graphic than are usually carried in newspapers, showing headless bodies, bloodied troops, wounded women, and bandaged babies missing limbs. One added recently shows a U.S. soldier with part of his face blown away by a bomb.

The blog also amounts to a critique of the U.S. news media. Another section of the site, under the headline, "Also not in today's news," shows a photograph of a Marine propped against a concrete wall, grimacing as he is treated for a shrapnel wound in his upper right leg.

And which presents the more accurate and correct picture?

After being interviewed, he added more information to his Web site, insisting: "This is not an antiwar site. You can visit this site and appreciate what it's doing and still support the war. . . . We need the whole story." He added that those wanting to see "the other side" of the story should "Go to Fox News, CNN, USA Today, WSJ, the Washington Post, or any of the other outlets that has these pictures and doesn't show them."

Retired Marine Col. Gary Anderson, who has advised the Pentagon on how to better fight in Iraq, said he thinks the military PowerPoint presentation does "a good job of trying to get the real story out."

But several other military experts said they found the blog more compelling.

"As far as the blog site, this is information operations at its finest," said one Marine officer who has served in Iraq. "IO is about influence, and this piece tries to influence people by depicting the human cost of war."

An Army soldier who fought in the Sunni Triangle last year and maintains a blog himself agreed. "The winner has to be the blog," he said. "There's something all too visceral about seeing the pictures of the dead and wounded, on both sides, which overwhelms static displays of weaponry" in the military presentation.

Juan Cole, a University of Michigan expert on Iraqi affairs who has a blog called "Informed Comment" (www.juancole.com), came to a similar but broader conclusion: "What the two presentations show us is that the U.S. military is full of brave and skilled warriors who can defeat their foes, but is still no good at counterinsurgency operations, and is wretched at winning hearts and minds."

The flack on the Pentagon payroll sounds really concerned about the "real" story doesn't he.

Hopefully this will spur the media to become more "fact-based".

But, of course, we doubt it.

Mission Accomplished Moment

In a stunt reminiscent of his landing aboard an aircraft carrier at the "end" of major combat operations, the Preznit asked the pilot of Air Force "Won" to buzz the stadium today as he approached the airport on his way to the Army-Navy football game.

The roar of Air Force One and a tip of its wing over the playing field signaled President Bush's arrival Saturday at the Army-Navy football game, a matchup steeped in tradition and shadowed today by the war in Iraq.

A devoted sports fan, Bush made a triumphant entrance to the 105th contest in the series when his plane swooped over Lincoln Financial Field before landing nearby. Bush took his seat on the Army side to start the game, with injured soldiers on next him. At halftime, he moved to the Navy's side.

I don't know why, but it just makes me think of Dr. Strangeglove. I'm all for football and think sports can be a good diversion for some people, but leave it to Alfred E. Newman to turn it into a theatrical moment while citizens are dying. It is all about him, not the 1268--that is one-thousand two hundred and sixty-eight--Americans killed in Iraq.

Just in Case You Were Counting

The press has done a horrible job both prior to and throughout the election season covering the real differences between projected and real job growth as a result of Bush's tax cuts.

Did you know the administration was way off the mark? Way, way off the mark? Just in case you were counting, and so you can share it with your relatives who think they know but really don't, here is a handy dandy chart from jobwatch.

The November job growth of 112,000 jobs falls short of this target by 194,000. Overall, the projection that 5,202,000 jobs would be created over the last 17 months is not close to having been realized. In reality, since the tax cuts took effect there are 2,986,000 fewer jobs than the administration projected would be created by enactment of its tax cuts. As can be seen in the chart below, job creation failed to meet the administration's projections in 15 of the past 17 months. It is apparent that, with just one month to go, the tax cuts have not worked as advertised.

Pretty bad, huh?

Ah, the joy of bein' Noticed

Newly added internet blogboy Champollion alerted me that Little LuLu seems to have noticed that yours truly "Atta J. Turk" was among the snark-coaliation yesterday at Atrios having sport with a bit of name inconsistency [something that must be made fun by people like me, writing under a made up name].

Here is the post that set all of the chucklehut to cackling mirth.

Your's truly, the anonymous internet blogboy, replied that Ms. Malkin's Maglalang's could more accurately be called,

Maglalangadingdong?

Silly and trifling, I know. But you have to admit, relatively funny.

Not as funny as this, of course:


Nevertheless, it does appear somebody does not seem to have had their sense of humor advance beyond this:

"Statement : Why did the Chicken cross the road?

Reply: I dunno.

Answer: To visit the japanese beyond the fence at the internment camp, wherein they were appropriately imprisoned during the course of the war, for no other reason than their nation of origin."

For on her site, Ms. Malkin or Maglalang, or whatever, said this:

Finally, to the person who wrote: "Maglalangadingdong." Do I know you? Because I think my brother beat you up in third grade when you used the same dumb taunt.

Well, you sort of know me...you once promised me a bouquet of roses if Phil Parlock was demonstrated to be a set-up artist...and I think I'm owed personally.

But you may know me otherwise, for I think indeed your brother did beat me up in third grade. We knew him as...

"King Kong" Maglalangadingdong

Give him my regards.

Trying to tell us something Bobo?

Before the usual bullshit about entitlement reform, this starts off Brooks' current crime against the written word:

I spent much of last week talking with Republicans about Social Security reform, but I didn't expect to find myself salivating over the phone. I was in a hotel room in St. Paul when I connected with Senator Lindsey Graham. As he spoke, I could hear Irish music in the background. I could hear laughter and conviviality. It turned out that he was calling me from a pub in Dublin.

I can't tell you how much I wanted at that moment to be in an Irish pub and possibly not even talking about entitlement reform.

Okay......

WE are the Bastards

I've been hesitant to really post about this, but it is becoming quite clear that the United States used NAPALM in Fallujah. Among the prime reasons declared as whey we should act to overthrow Hussein was his use of chemical weapons against the Kurds in the late 1980s (which is true and abominable of course) -- a use which was enabled and tolerated by the Reagan Administration, and only used as a basis for acting against Hussein a generation later. Of course, we also went into the Iraq because we claimed they had WMD.

Well NAPALM is a WMD, but we are using it.

This is akin to the Germans entering Belgium and France in August 1914 because the French had chemical weapons, only to begin being the first to use them not long after (this is a fact).

It is not the first time we've used NAPALM in Iraq.

A 1980 UN convention banned the use against civilian targets of napalm, a terrifying mixture of jet fuel and polystyrene that sticks to skin as it burns. The US, which did not sign the treaty, is one of the few countries that makes use of the weapon. It was employed notoriously against both civilian and military targets in the Vietnam war.

The upgraded weapon, which uses kerosene rather than petrol, was used in March and April [2003], when dozens of napalm bombs were dropped near bridges over the Saddam Canal and the Tigris river, south of Baghdad.

"We napalmed both those [bridge] approaches," said Colonel James Alles, commander of Marine Air Group 11. "Unfortunately there were people there ... you could see them in the [cockpit] video. They were Iraqi soldiers. It's no great way to die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect."

At Daily Kos, diarist Avila has more on the recent use of NAPALM in Iraq.

These stories are all over the alternative media and bubbling up.

When embedded reporters told of U.S. napalm use in Iraq at the start of the invasion, Pentagon hacks launched a rapid propaganda counter-attack. Lt. Commanders Danny Hernandez and Jeff Davis issued official denials, stating that the U.S. had destroyed all of its napalm bombs years ago. After the March 22 CNN and Sydney Morning Herald reports, Davis emphatically added that such reports were “patently false.”

Although the denials were false, they effectively killed any reporting about U.S. napalm use until five months after the fact, and more than three months after the president declared the end of “major combat operations” on May 1.

Does it matter that the U.S. is using a weapon that was banned by the UN in 1980? Does it matter that the U.S. is using and plans to use more weapons valued for their psychological as well as physical effects? Does it matter that these acts are well publicized by Arab/Muslim media, but the U.S. public is kept ignorant and confused? In any case, the truth is:

Hundreds of napalm bombs were shipped to Iraq and dozens were dropped on numerous sites. The official website of the USMC reported on February 2, 2003 that napalm bombs were offloaded into Kuwait for the 3d Marine Aircraft Wing “ready for use whenever 3rd MAW needs them.”

According to Col. Randolph Alles (commander of the Miramar-based Marine Air Group 11), “We napalmed both those [bridge] approaches…there were people there because you could see them in the [cockpit] video.” He further stated, “The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect.”

Just as Navy sailors were supplying Marines with napalm in February, the Pentagon was asking Congress for $3.6 million for 1,000 more napalm bombs in the 2004 budget. Illinois’ Rock Island Arsenal is making 500 more right now.

When confronted with the news from San Diego that Marine pilots back from the front and their commander had discussed their use of napalm in Iraq with a reporter, the Pentagon changed its story. Now, it admits using Mark 77 firebombs and claims that its prior denials of napalm use would not have occurred had reporters used the correct terminology during their inquiries. Because the bombs contain kerosene instead of gasoline in their fuel/gel mixture (which is now harder to extinguish), the “new and improved” napalm isn’t really napalm anymore. Yet, as revealed by Marine Corps hack Colonel Mike Daily, the Pentagon knew this was a phony excuse for its prior lies, telling a reporter, “Many folks [out of habit] refer to the Mark-77 as ‘napalm’ because its effect upon the target is remarkably similar.” The Marine commander and his pilots call it “napalm.”

John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, said, “You can call it something other than napalm, but it is still napalm. It has been reformulated...they now use a different petroleum distillate, but that is it. The U.S. is the only country that has used napalm for a long time.”

Sounds like some folks in the Quad Cities have a cause (I'm sure a few of them are more than aware of this fact already).

This is a major problem, there is simply no moral way to justify the use of NAPALM. Arguments that it will "save" American lives are not justification to the pandora's box the use of NAPALM causes. In the long run, more Americans will die from the use of this type of weapon than be saved by its use.

The use of such weapons will be used as "Exhibit A" for Iraqis and those who sympathize with those opposed to America to hate. Can you really say that hatred is unjustified by this argument: "hey, it kills more of you people than us so we used it"? No you cannot.

Hey, mainstream media, how about asking the Chimp himself about this crap? Or how about at least a discussion of the use of such weapons, as they are being unleased in our name and most Americans (thanks to your inattention) have no goddamned idea they are being used.

A Victory for the First Amendment

Wins at the margins are always welcome. Juan Cole, whose page, as many bloggers and blog readers know is probably the best source on the internet for information about the Mideast has the story. Unfortunately, buried within the story is the disturbing nature of bullying that is engaged in by Likudnicks and their continuing affiliation with the American Right.

History: Quack, Quack

Antonin Scalia, not exactly a student of history. At a speech at a Synagogue in New York just before Thanksgiving:

Scalia, 68, addressed the topic of government and its relationship to religion.

In the synagogue that is home to America's oldest Jewish congregation, he noted that in Europe, religion-neutral leaders almost never publicly use the word "God."

But, the justice asked, "Did it turn out that, by reason of the separation of church and state, the Jews were safer in Europe than they were in the United States of America? I don't think so."

Holy fuck!

How many paragraphs could be written to show just how idiotic that statement is when compared to actual history.

Jesus-on-a-swizzlestick, how is this man considered the "shining" light of the right?

Nevermind, that question itself is ridiculous.

You Know it is Getting a Bit out of Hand...um, so to speak...

It's been a pretty good and heady blog week here at "RH" (that's what I call it when I want to sound très chic -- annoying no?).

We've added a new internet blogboy, Champollion, and DeDurkheim is becoming available to post again. It's also been a month and I think the black veil of depression is lifting from all of us. So, not bad all-in-all.

With so many important things in the world to blog about, I think its important that I tackle this vital issue forthwith.

You know Attaturk, being anonymous and all and completely unknown to most all of you in my non-Internet(s) personna, can state that I never go out of my way to watch porn. Because the miracle of the infobahn makes working hard to see pornography unnecessary.

But there should be limits.

It was bad enough when Pam Anderson's space-age polymers were videotaped coitally for posterity with her drug-addled rocker husband.

But now more and more celebrity sex tapes have made it to the internet. And what had once been the sacrosanct realm of the professional pornstars, desperate teenage runaways, and heroin addicts, is being ruined. Dammit there used to be standards!!

And now...well now the decline has continued unabated.

In the words of Bush I, "this cannot stand!" And if you think about the above video, that is true in so many, many ways.

What next? Ernest Borgnine's sweaty romp with Candy Crowley?

Even the CIA Had Misgivings About Abu Ghraib

Well this about says it all, doesn't it?

The report warning of possible abuses of Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody was sent to commanders in Iraq a month before the now infamous photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison emerged early this year, the Pentagon said Wednesday in confirming some of the findings.

Friday's Question of the Week: The People Must Be Heard?

From the mouth of cro-magnon man to our ears. The Preznit, as we all know, is well coached in the art of repeating some cliched truism, a mantra picked-up in meetings with his communications staff (though occasionally he has to wing it, as in sovereignty means sovereignty, it means you've been given sovereignty, that you are sovereign...).

On Thursday the Preznit gushed this familiar platitude:

The position of our government is that the will of the people must be known and heard. And, therefore, I will -- we will continue to monitor and be involved in a process that encourages there to be a peaceful resolution of this issue. And, you know, there are different options on the table and we're watching very carefully what is taking place. But any election in any country must be -- must reflect the will of the people and not that of any foreign government.

So here is the questin of the week:

What the hell is "the will of the people"? And how do we know it is the will of the people?

Just Think Twenty Years Ago You Would Have Been Treating Me Like the Spoiled Punk I Was

Now you work for me. Can you believe it?

Just point into crowds, pointing and waving indiscriminately at people, always smiling, making them think we are recognizing them. Suckers. He He.

Here's something you'll have to master in my White House Bernie: acting like you care. Cause when you don't care, you gotta make sure it doesn't show.

Oh, and don't worry, we'll get you all the smart people you need to implement my policies, whatever they are.

Congratulations Mr. Kerik.

But Can he Knock Wood?

I'm hoping he can bring some solid earth-tones to the national color code system.

The 49-year-old Kerik's path to the top homeland security position, where he will replace Tom Ridge, was unconventional, but he campaigned arduously for Bush this year.

A military policeman in South Korea in the 1970s, Kerik's first anti-terrorism work was as a paid private security worker in Saudi Arabia. He joined the New York Police Department in 1986, first walking a beat in Times Square when it was still a haven for small-time hustlers.

He eventually was tapped to lead the city's corrections department, and was appointed police commissioner in 2000.

It was in that position that he became known to the rest of the country, supervising the NYPD's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, often at the side of then-mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Kerik helped repair a department that lost 23 members and became a steady hand for a population deeply shaken by the attacks.

Most recently, he has been a consultant for Giuliani Partners, working to rebuild Baghdad's police force.

Well, that last one was certainly about as successful as a Giuliani marriage.

At least 26 people, including 12 policemen, were killed in double attacks in Baghdad as US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted that he had underestimated the Iraq insurgency.

At least 12 Iraqi policemen were killed in an attack on a police station in Baghdad's western Al-Amel district, while at least 14 people were killed in a suicide car bombing in the capital's northern Al-Adhamiya district.

This certainly bodes well.

They Don't Make Mistakes...they Just Explain Away

Smoked out a bit by the fact that they went out of their way to treat documents KNOWN to be forged to brow beat and proclaim George Galloway as, and these are their proclaimations, a TRAITOR, Sully and Reynolds offer not apologies, but equivocations and naturally end up right where they started, bashing Galloway.

Here is the blowhard of Provencetown on April 25, 2003:

If you want further evidence that Galloway is guilty, here's a piece by Scott Ritter, defending him. I wonder if Galloway will decide to sue the Telegraph now, after all. And I wonder if the anti-war movement could be more damaged. (The news is also retroactively embarrassing for Diane Sawyer, who cited Galloway as emblematic of British anti-war sentiment earlier this year.) When I first mentioned the possibility of a fifth column, I presumed it would be fueled by ideological fervor. I didn't contemplate it could be fueled by the mighty dollar. You've got to love these Marxists, don't you?

Here is his claim now:

Some things are worth reiterating. The libel verdict won by Saddam-supporter George Galloway does not depend on the notion that Galloway's ties to Saddam were disproven. They haven't been. Nor was this case decided by a jury. The case was won because, in the judge's view, the Telegraph had not given Galloway sufficient time or space to respond to the charges:

Here is the article he cites to for that claim. You tell me if he is just gleaning out what he wishes, as opposed to what the story actually reports.

And sweet, sweet Crackerbarrel, I mean Instahack? Well if your wrong, the other guy has to be "wronger".

I guess Galloway was giving it away, rather than charging for it.

Look, George Galloway strikes me, from thousands of miles away, as a gigantic pontificating blowhard and a bit of a douche. But, despite the existence of their own ARCHIVES, these two seem to think that every person in this country has their attention span and no idea what they were vomiting up at their keyboards 18 months ago. They both used the Telegraphs accusations to support every smear they could think of against Galloway and the anti-war movement, including going the extra mile to smear another guy who deserves an apology from them Scott Ritter (who pretty much ended up being right with every prediction he made and which Sully and Insty mocked). It was wrong and it was sickening.

Just recently the both of them, especially "Professor Jethro" went apeshit over Dan Rather's dubious documentation. Dubious documentation that quickly became the subject of debate and led to an apology by Rather within two weeks of their use, no such doubts when it is a false story helping their cause and enables them to proclaim folks TRAITORS.

Sometimes a little humility goes a long way, you'll still get to have people who look different from you, and worship a slightly differently pronounced deity, killed in our names fellas. You think they could be magnanimous at the margins.

Friday Miscellaneous Lifeform Blogging

Commenter "Republic of Palau" has been requesting a life form. So always willing to try to satisfy requests from our readers, even those suggesting I do something to myself, I try to make good.

Now, I should say that his animal is much like many members of the Bush Administration. Soft, fleshy, timid, and if you push them too hard they shoot ink and flee.


The Striped Pyjama Squid

DOD Report: We're Screwing Up the War on Terra

In a quietly published report, submitted to the administration in September, but not made available until Thanksgiving, the Defense Science Board has concluded that we're losing the battle for hearts and minds in the middle-east.

From Sidney Blumenthal in the Guardian:

They discovered more than a government sector "in crisis", though it found that: "Missing are strong leadership, strategic direction, adequate coordination, sufficient resources, and a culture of measurement and evaluation." As it journeyed into the recesses of the Bush foreign policy, the taskforce documented the failure of fundamental premises. "America's negative image in world opinion and diminished ability to persuade are consequences of factors other than the failure to implement communications strategies," the report declares. What emerges is an indictment of an expanding and unmitigated disaster based on stubborn ignorance of the world and failed concepts that bear little relation to empirical reality, except insofar as they confirm and incite gathering hatred among Muslims.
The Bush administration, according to the defence science board, has misconceived a war on terrorism in the image of the cold war. However, the struggle is not the west versus Islam; while we blindly call this a "war on terrorism", Muslims "in contrast see a history-shaking movement of Islamic restoration" against "apostate" Arab regimes allied with the US and "western modernity - an agenda hidden within the official rubric of a 'war on terrorism'".

In this conflict, "wholly unlike the cold war", the Bush administration's impulse has been to "imitate the routines and bureaucratic ... mindset that so characterised that era". So the US projects Iraqis and other Arabs as people to be liberated, like those "oppressed by Soviet rule". And the US accepts authoritarian Arab regimes as allies against the "radical fighters". All this is nothing less than a gigantic "strategic mistake".

"There is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-US groundswell among Muslim societies - except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the US so determinedly promotes and defends." Rhetoric about freedom is received as "no more than self-serving hypocrisy", highlighted daily by the US occupation in Iraq. "Muslims do not 'hate our freedom', but rather they hate our policies." The "dramatic narrative ... of the war on terrorism", Bush's grand storyline connecting all the dots from the World Trade Centre to Baghdad, has "borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars". As a result, jihadists have been able to transform them selves from marginal figures in the Muslim world into defenders against invasion, with a following of millions.

Not to worry fellow citizens, inside the heart of every person in the middle-east beats the heart of a person who wants to vote in an election. Food, water, power, a job, oh, and maybe a little less shrapnel come second.

Holy crap. these folks are real assholes, aren't they? Things just look worse and worse.*


*I know, I know, Attaturk beat me to this a few days ago, but as this is my first week I'm taking the liberty of chiming in where I am so moved.

Leadership: Honor the Fallen

Props to Holden at First Draft for making me aware of this.

In this country, we had a chance to elect a man who knows the full effects of bad policy decisions, by the powerful, upon those called to enact their policies and strategems. We had a chance to elect a man who knows what it is like to fight in wars, to be afraid, to have a buddy killed, and even the weight of killing someone before they killed you.

We had a man who respects those called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice, no matter whether it was at the same time he was in that situation, or later when another generation is required to hold that risk.


Penelope Gavriel (bottom L) kisses the U.S. flag that draped the casket of her son, Lance Cpl. Dimitrios Gavriel, as U.S. Senators' Ted Kennedy, D-MA, and John Kerry , D-MA, stand alongside other family members during his honor guard funeral at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington DC, December 2, 2004. Gavriel, from Haverhill, Massachusetts, died November 19 while fighting in Al Anbar Province in Iraq.



But instead we elected a feckless frat boy.

Minutes before the speech [declaring war], an internal television monitor at the White House showed the President pumping his fist.

"Feels good," he said.

Congratulations my fellow Americans, congratu--fucking--lations.

Georgie, God, and Grumblings

"Georg" Bush and God:

For the past several weeks, I have been impressed by the level of double speak in our government. It began when I was walking through a book store and saw a strange bestseller being promoted (more realistically, a book being promoted to become a best seller by being given prominent display at the entrance). “God and George W. Bush.”

The cover image shows President Bush looking slightly upward, suggesting God is talking, and George is listening. Would not most of the Christian persuasion find this a bit galling? Mr. Preznit knows the "will of God?" I found that image and the implicit message somewhat offensive, given my interpretation that “God’s Will” is not exactly what Mr. Preznit is doing in Iraq, to the Environment, with regard to the needs of the poor, with regard to the state of education in the U.S., etc.

And more about Gilbert:

Today, the CNN web site has an essay suggesting Pentagon officials are investigating a statement made by a Lieutenant in October, in which the Lt. announced that a major offensive was beginning in Falluja. According to the CNN story, “A senior Pentagon official told CNN that Gilbert's remarks were ‘technically true but misleading.’ It was an attempt to get CNN ‘to report something not true,’ the official said.”

What was not true? Did I miss something, or didn’t we just kill (at the very least) several hundred Iraqis in Falluja in order to chase and fight what ended up being a small band of “insurgents” (most of whom probably fled)?

A sign, sign, everywhere a sign

I have also been taken by the billboards all across America (I drove a few miles during Thanksgiving, hey didn't a bunch of us do that? Did I waive at you? Maybe.) that read “FREEDOM IS NOT FREE.”

Sure it is. Oppression is not free.

Finally, my kids told us on the drive that they had a veteran or a marine or a soldier come to their school during Veteran’s Day. My kids were told that “Soldiers do not join the Army to kill, they join to defend the United States.” I was taken aback by those insights. And given the fact that my children are young, and live in a community, I did not press the matter to seriously in their presence.

But surely the young men and women who join the military must know that they are probably going to end up shooting and killing people. For the brief time that most young men and women are in the Army, they train for it on a daily basis. Don’t they do that still?

Our Nation has been involved in a War (“Conflict?”) for an average of one of every three years we have been a nation. But calling our military’s actions “defensive” seems “misleading” to me. If I am not mistaken, our nation has rarely been “attacked,” thereby requiring defense. I understand Sept. 11th, 2004. But our military was caught completely off guard according to the 9/11 Commission Report. The same goes for Pearl Harbor (although several historians disagree), which was in fact a U.S. Territory at the time. I guess we could say the British attacked us in the Early 1800s, but that was another time.

More grumblings later. And no, I do not think that the right wing or nut wing have God on their side. I don't think God picks sides.

Bush Policy: Its Kerry's

Well, for all those folks who were worried that GW Bush would move even further to the Right after this election, it now seems that Bush, in fact, is embracing the proposals for Iraq put forward by none other than his former opponent John Kerry and the bastion of evil called The New York Times.

Bush is now sending over twelve thousands more troops to Iraq, just as Kerry and the New York Times proposed. What's next? Maybe Kerry would make a good director of Homeland Security? Maybe he could then explain the phrase perpetual war to Mr. Bush.

Evolution Hatred: Bias Against Intellectuals?

The people who brought the nation the Scopes Monkey" trial are back with a new advertising pitch to swap out science and replace it with religion. After the incredible smash hit single, "I'm no kin to a Monkey, a Monkey no kin to me," are back with more than moral values, heck these people know more science than Dr. Science!

As Laura Parker of Ann Coulter hiring 'Merica Today notes:

Nearly 80 years after the famous "Monkey Trial," in which Tennessee teacher John Scopes was convicted of teaching evolution in violation of state law, 24 states this year have seen efforts to change the way evolution is taught.

And because of a requirement in the federal No Child Left Behind law that states must review science standards over the next two years, the debate is likely to intensify. That requirement provides an opportunity for critics of evolution to help reshape how it is taught in public schools.

The battlegrounds include small school districts as well as state school boards that write policy for every district in the state. Among them:

•In western Wisconsin, the small Grantsburg School District now requires that alternative theories of evolution be taught.

•In Ohio, the state school board passed a measure that encourages the teaching of evolution and "intelligent design," a hypothesis that says life is so complex that some intelligent force was responsible.

•In Kansas, the defeat this month of a "pro-science" incumbent on the state school board by a candidate who had questioned evolution has shifted the balance of power on the 10-member board and ensures that the issue will come up again. The board ended the teaching of evolution in 1999, then reversed that decision after a subsequent election. It has been deadlocked since.

Debates over religion, science and natural phenomena are not limited to schools and evolution. The bookstore at Grand Canyon National Park sells Grand Canyon: A Different View by Tom Vail, a Colorado River guide. The book says the Grand Canyon was created during Noah's flood, not through millennia of erosion by the Colorado River.

The fight over evolution is heating up as the country tries to come to terms with the role of religion in government. The American public remains divided. In a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll of 1,105 people conducted Nov. 19-21, 48% said religion has too much political influence in American life, and 40% said it has too little influence. Seven percent said religion has about the right amount of political influence. The poll's margin of error was +/—3 percentage points.

The debate over evolution has itself evolved. It is no longer a clear-cut argument between creationists who support the Bible's version of the origin of life and evolutionists who back Charles Darwin's theory that complex life forms, including humans, developed through genetic changes over millions of years. Now, those challenging Darwin want evolution taught as a theory whose validity is questioned. They also want alternative views taught so students are exposed to all views.

Oh come on, alternate views is not what these people want. Theocracy? Christian Caliphate? Holy America empire? These are closer to the truth. What I believe is going on here is an attack against intellecturalism. An attack on the culture of the mind in favor of fundamentalism. Now that the religious nutwing have hired their man George, they feel empowered. Heaven help us indeed.

Apologies to George Galloway

It seems like a loooooooooooooooooong time ago, but within a few days of Saddam's statue being downed, virulently anti-war member of the UK Parliament, George Galloway was pilloried, not only as a radical by the mainstream of the Labour Party, but by mainstream media in the Western World. Most particularly he was decried as a traitor and a toady by many on the right, and even a few on the left.

The most scandalous story, underpinning all of the other criticisms was the claim by a Daily Telegraph columnist that he had found proof that Galloway was on the take from Saddam (link no longer available, naturally).

This assertion was false.

And yesterday, Galloway was found to have been the victim of libel.

One might expect folks like Instapundit and Sully to take note. Sully for example was in high dudgeon over the matter in the Spring of 2003, calling him a traitor, here, here (with the added bonus of singling out pretty much as many war opponents as possible as being traitors), and here.

Over at Crackerbarrel I mean, Instahack, nothing naturally. But "Tennessee Justice and T-Shirt Model" sure threw out the accusations here, and here.

The Intersection of Whatever we Want to Believe Street & Jump to Conclusions Avenue was also in on the act, though the archive for that time seems to have done blowed up all of the sudden. Naturally, no mention today.

So on behalf of the ENTIRE FUCKING FREE (albeit gullible) WORLD, let me apologize to George Galloway!

Terra-ist Beware: You May Not Know You Are One

I don't know whether this falls under the label hubris or just brutal honesty but they have finally admitted it: anyone can be arrested and held in military detention, indefinitely, if the Preznit thinks you are a terra-ist.

Several times, Boyle reminded Green that judges should defer to a president at war. But Green asked whether "a little old lady in Switzerland" could be detained as an enemy combatant if she contributed money to an organization that was "a front for al-Qaeda," even though she thought she was giving money to help orphans.

Green offered other scenarios, including: someone from Ireland who taught English to an al-Qaeda operative; a man who knew his cousin was an al-Qaeda member but did not report it to police; and a reporter who knew Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s whereabouts but refused to tell authorities for fear of revealing a source's identity.

Boyle said it is possible that the people in Green's fictitious examples could be taken into custody. Green then pushed Boyle to define the battlefield in the war on terror.

"If an enemy combatant can include someone in Africa or Europe who never came within 1,000 miles of the battlefield (in Afghanistan (news - web sites)), what and where is the battlefield?" she asked, referring to three detainees captured in Africa.

There are no boundaries, Boyle said, because al-Qaeda is a global terrorist group "like nothing we have seen before."

Trust me, they aren't stopping with the little old lady in Switzerlannd. Try peace protessters on college campuses.

She's 100% Right

Ann Coulter.

Occasionally (okay, ONCE!), the tranny says something amidst the bullshit that rings 100 percent true, and thanks to Media Matters, I've found an example when you parse out all of the batshit craziness.

Canada has become trouble recently.

It's -- I suppose it's always, I might add, the worst Americans who end up going there.

Mann, you hit that one on the head!

Look over there, it's Julia Roberts' Babies!

Hezekiah and Ipicac or whatever the fuck they are.*

All created to take your mind off of things like how shitty things are over in Neocon Fantasyland, where it was a record month at the wooden-box office!

But I'm sure those 12,000 additional troops and soldiers who's tours have been held over ONCE AGAIN will take it up a notch and build an even more stately pleasuredome.

Why it's enough to make a 101st Keyboarder cream-in-their pants (they wear pants?).

But there are always those who manage to not appreciate the work of Dear Leader and the panacea he has created in Babylon:

You think getting into New York is a hassle? This is what it takes to get to Baghdad these days. First, there's the $630, 80-mile flight from Jordan. Dodging surface-to-air missiles, the pilot zigzags the plane into a heart-pounding landing. A convoy of armored vehicles awaits the traveler who has made prior arrangements. Thus begins the trip into town, a trip that James Hider of The Times of London describes as "the most expensive, dangerous taxi ride in the world.... Your driver is more likely to ask your blood type than if you had a pleasant landing."

The cars set off on the 15-mile ride from the airport, southwest of central Baghdad, to the coalition's Green Zone at 100 m.p.h. The highway, which used to be lined with palm trees, is now barren. The trees were cut down by U.S. forces to eliminate sniper posts. The wide-eyed passenger runs a gauntlet of roadside bombs, suicide car bombers, and charred Humvees and trucks, as well as hidden insurgents wielding rocket-propelled-grenade launchers. According to Hider, the 10-plus-minute ride will set the intrepid traveler back about $5,000.

The driver will likely avoid the Hamra district-where armed gangs prowl the streets looking for Westerners to kidnap, whom they then sell to one of the Islamist groups for some $250,000-and make a beeline for the Green Zone, the walled district of former palaces turned government buildings that is the coalition's redoubt in Baghdad. The area is a protected, isolated bubble within Iraq, but even here journalists and contractors arrange for a couple of cars and a handful of bodyguards, generally former soldiers from the U.S., Britain, or South Africa, who come armed with assault rifles and submachine guns. Two cars and four men can run upwards of $10,000 a day. It's getting so expensive to get people in and out of Iraq that it's estimated between 10 and 20 percent of the Iraq-reconstruction budget is going toward this sort of security.

I think about this every time I see a Baghdad dateline in the morning paper or a television correspondent broadcasting from there. Forget the rosy picture the Pentagon is painting for the public-the situation there is in meltdown right now. And it's only getting worse.

I think it is just shameful that people are so determined to try to shed such a poor light on the dreamland being built in Iraq by actually going there and checking it out for themselves.

For shame!

And then that same, unpatriotic publication, tells us that soldiers are returning from Iraq and immediately betraying their sacred duty to the "Seed of the Higher Father", by falsely claiming that things are not all going swimmingly and that they have not been made even more super-duper-patriotic by their so-called sacrifice in working and playing in such a wonderfully transformed beacon of hope in the middle-east. (Oh, and you who complain of long, tortured sentences? You're traitors!)

A 20-year veteran of the New York National Guard, Ramos had been mobilized for active duty in Iraq in the spring of 2003. His unit, the 442nd Military Police company, arrived there on Easter, 10 days before President Bush's mission accomplished appearance on the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln. A tall, soft-spoken 40-year-old with four children, the youngest still an infant, Ramos was proud of his physique. In civilian life, he was a New York City cop. "I worked on a street narcotics team. It was very busy, with lots of overtime-very demanding." Now, rising unsteadily from his armchair in his thickly carpeted living room in Queens, New York, Ramos grimaces. "The shape I came back in, I cannot perform at that level. I've lost 40 pounds. I'm frail."

At first, as his unit patrolled the cities of Najaf and al-Diwaniyya, Ramos stayed healthy. But in June 2003, as temperatures climbed above 110 degrees, his unit was moved to a makeshift base in an abandoned railroad depot in Samawah, where some fierce tank battles had taken place. "When we first got there, I was a heat casualty, feeling very weak," Ramos says. He expected to recover quickly. Instead, he went rapidly downhill.

By the middle of August, when the 442nd was transferred to Babylon, Ramos says, the right side of his face and both of his hands were numb, and he had lost most of the strength in his grip. His fatigue was worse and his headaches had become migraines, frequently so severe "that I just couldn't function." His urine often contained blood, and even when it didn't he would feel a painful burning sensation, which "wouldn't subside when I finished." His upper body was covered by a rash that would open and weep when he scratched it. As he tells me this, he lifts his shirt to reveal a mass of pale, circular scars. He was also having respiratory difficulties. Later, he would develop sleep apnea, a dangerous condition in which he would stop breathing during sleep.

Eventually, Ramos was medevaced to a military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany. Doctors there were baffled and sent him on to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. There, Ramos says, one neurologist suggested that his condition could have been caused by some long-forgotten head injury or might just be "signs of aging." At the end of September 2003, the staff at Walter Reed ordered him to report to Fort Dix, New Jersey, where, he says, a captain went through his record and told him, "I was clear to go back to Iraq. I got the impression they thought I was faking it." He was ordered to participate in a long-distance run. Halfway through, he collapsed. Finally, on July 31, 2004, after months of further examinations, Ramos was discharged with a medical disability and sent home.

Apparently, this situation is likely caused by an innocent enough explanation. In addition to giving the Iraqi's the gift of "freedom" we are giving them the benefit of our advanced use of tactitical radioactivity via the wonder that is depleted uranium. It's a long-term gift to both our soldiers and those lucky third-worlders.

Enjoy the legacy Mr. and Ms. Iraqi, you and both your heads.


*Names may already be intellectional property of TBogg each Friday.

Figuring it Works on Americans, Chimp Uses 9/11 to Manipulate Canadians

The Chimp thinks it would be good to have Canada's help in the war on terra. How can I get this backwater country behind me? Hmmm, lets see. 9/11. Yeah, that's the ticket, 9/11. The suckers in Jesusland bought it; I'll bet the Canadians will too.

Bush's visit to this port city was linked to the Sept. 11 attacks, the defining event of his presidency and the spark for his eventual decision to invade Iraq.

"For days after Sept. 11, Canadians came to the aid of men and women and children who were worried and confused and had nowhere to sleep," the president said inside the Port 21 Museum, a historic site that was for decades a gateway for immigration and troop movements.

"You opened your homes and your churches to strangers, you brought food, you set up clinics, you arranged for calls to their loved ones, and you asked for nothing in return," the president said.

"Thank you for your kindness to America in an hour of need."

We may have plenty of suckers down here that buy that line of BS from the Chimp, but what does he think Canadians are? Morons? Apparently, so he delivers the coup de grace:

"Beyond the words of politicians and the natural disagreements that nations will have, our two peoples are one family and always will be," he said.

Its the old switcheroo he's given us a million times: yeah we've disagreed but that's what is great about democracy, people can disagree and state their disagreement. But he keeps forgetting to mention that stating your disagreement in a politically antiseptic safety zone is about all you get from this guy.

Are the Canadians buying it?

A couple of hundred protesters chanted anti-Bush slogans and held signs that read, "PM (Prime Minister) don't make deals with the devil," "Terrorists go home" and "Tanks for nothing."

Bush's audience sat mostly in silence as he called on Canadians and other allies to join him in "great goals," each of them relating to terrorism and each long ingrained in Bush policy.

I didn't think so.

Oh, and do you think he told them just how bad things are? That we ae actually drafting, I mean extending the tours of our soldiers so that we may increase our troop presence?

I didn't think so either.

Otis on the Daily Show

A little reference for your "Mayberry" fans (you know that North Carolina town without the black people?).

Christopher Hitchens showed up on the Daily Show literally stumbling onto the set, literally bearing a paper cup with him that appeared to contain whatever color of Johnny Walker the man had guzzled that hour.

In addition to malted grains, the man appears to be governed by nothing than a preconcieved viewpoint and the ability to seek out those with analogies to back it up.

The Upper Ranks Rank

While the grunts fight and die, the brass drink and fly.

David Hackworth on the yet another abuse in Iraq:

“I recall one day we had 17 C-130s operating in Iraq, and 14 were picked off by the DV folks,” roars a senior airman. “Little if any cargo was flown that day. I understand there’s not many ways for a general to visit Iraq because these aircraft are the only ones with defensive countermeasures, but there are inventions called the Internet (e-mail), phones and media teleconferences. I am not sure if anyone on high questions whether these VIP boondoggles are necessary.”

“The worst crap was when Central Command would schedule a C-130, then find another ride for their VIP and not tell anyone,” reports a blue-suiter in Qatar. “They wouldn’t cancel the C-130 mission because if their shady deal fell through, they’d have the C-130 as backup. They would then jet off on their alternate ride and not show up for the C-130. Since it takes about a day to get the cargo planned for the C-130 and also to get the crew in crew-rest prior to the mission, there was nothing we could do with the aircraft. It just sat on the strip ... a wasted asset!”

“The problem that frequently arises is despite the cargo backlog, CENTCOM generals keep picking off C-130s to fly for ‘grip and grins,’ good old boys’ get-togethers,” reports another justifiably upset warrior.

Fantastic.

And While You're At It, Why Not Put a Picture of "Johnny Walker Black Label" on Your Ass too?

When HACKS get together, caution, probity and just plain decency go out the window faster than Wonkette can spot a chubby:

I'm sorry, in advance:

"The occasion was a book party for British editor and knighthood recipient Harold Evans, author of "They Made America: Two Centuries of Innovators From the Steam Engine to the Search Engine." Guests included irrepressible Republican campaign adviser Mary Matalin, who cornered hawkish scribe Christopher Hitchens and praised him effusively for supporting President Bush's reelection. "My hero," she called Hitchens. "I'm going to get your name tattooed on my chest!"

You know, I'm no tattoo artist, but isn't being made to work upon a bare-chested Mary Matalin like an OSHA-violation or something?

I suppose somebody should ask Carville about that, he'd know. Must have gotten a variance or something.

There Is Only One Way to Peace: War?

Preznit Chimpy, in words designed to mend fences with our good neighbors to the north, assures our peace-loving allies that"a new day of hope and freedom is on the way." He added:

"Our enemies have declared their intentions and so have we," Bush told an audience in Halifax, Nova Scotia. "Peaceful nations must keep the peace by going after the terrorists and disrupting their plans and cutting off their funding."

"There's only one way to deal with enemies who plot in secret," he said. "We must take the fight to them. We must be relentless and we must be steadfast in our duty to protect our people."

He must have forgotten to say, "We must crush them like grapes under the feet of justice marching on the reign of freedom, we must show them no mercy, we shall level the towns where they live and invade their homes! Let freedom Reign!" Or something like that.

Ridge Resigns As Work of Safeguarding Motherland Nears Completion

As my feet hit the floor each day I'm thinking "what has Dear Leader done to make me feel safe and secure?" When Uber-Ashcroft resigned I knew for the first time that even though I may not have known about all of the work that they have done, that the task of safeguarding me and my neighbors has been accomplished. Whew. Now I don't have to be suspicious of people that don't look like me.

Hey, wait a minute, Ridge's successor apparently faces a daunting task.

"WASHINGTON - Tom Ridge's successor as chief of the Homeland Security Department will have to unify a sprawling bureaucracy, a deadly serious job where failure could put the United States at risk of another terror attack."
Hey, wait another doggone minute, the color-coded warning level, super-hero call device is yellow.
That means there are still terra-ist out there that hate us because we love freedom. Dear Leader's work isn't done after all.

Wise guys. They had me going there for a minute.

The Middling Triumvirate - Rising Expanding Hegemon

For a while now, we have been considering adding a third blogger.

After some heated negotiations with, oddly enough, the New York Mets and the Republic of Ghana we have been able to hammer out a deal.

For future considerations (for some reason when we die our fillings are to go to Mike Piazza and our kidneys to President John Agyekum Kufuor) we can now add a new person to "Rising Hegemon the Blog" (as opposed to "Rising Hegemon the Prophylactic").

Progressive blogger "Champollion" joins, "Atta J. Turk", and "Phinnaeus J. DeDurkheim".* Don't forget to alert the media.





*Hey, if Julia Roberts can do it so can I.

Tuskeegee II: Electric Boogaloo

I saw this story over at Steve Gilliard's always excellent blog, and he posted the clear similarity to the Tuskeegee experiments first. This is outrageous. Such is the new/old way of doing things in Rupublistan* (the nation formerly known as the U.S. of A)!

During a nine month investigation, the BBC has uncovered the disturbing truth about the way authorities in New York City are conducting the fight against Aids.

HIV positive children - some only a few months old - are enrolled in toxic experiments without the consent of guardians or relatives.

In some cases where parents have refused to give children their medication, they have been placed in care.

The city's Administration of Children's Services (ACS) does not even require a court order to place HIV kids with foster parents or in children's homes, where they can continue to give them experimental drugs.

...

In 2002, the Incarnation Children's Center - a children's home in Harlem - was at the hub of controversy over secretive drugs trials.

Jamie speaks to a boy who spent most of his life at Incaranation. Medical records, obtained by the This World team, prove the boy had been enrolled in these trials.

"I did not want to take my medication," said the boy, "but if you want to get out of there, you have to do what they say."

He also conveys a horrifying account of what happened to the children at Incarnation who refused to obey the rules. "My friend Daniel didn't like to take his medicine and he got a tube in his stomach," he said.

Powerless

Dr David Rasnick from the University of Berkeley who has studied the effects of HIV drugs on patients - particularly children - says these drugs are "lethal".

"The young are not completely developed yet," he says. "The immune system isn't completely mature until a person's in their teens."

So why are these children targetted? Is it simply because they cannot defend themselves?

This is, in essence, a summary of a BBC broadcast. A more detailed report is here.

The story is, of course, the most outrageous thing...BUT how scary is it that this is revealed by a British news organization and NOT by the American media, the most significant (corporate) of which are located in New York City?

Add the two elements together and ask yourselves just how free we really are.

This story should be the goddamned LEAD, or near it, depending on what goes on in Iraq, on all the major broadcasting networks, yet I'll be surprised if it is even reported on any of them.




*I should, to be fair (occasionally this blog tries that) that this occurred in New York State and City, which, while they have a Republican Governor and a Republican Mayor respectively, are not exactly completely run by the GOP, I'd guess there are some Democratic fingers in this policy as well. But the tone of the nation is definitely set by those in power and that certainly is not the Democrats.

Lying, Patent Pending

In an earlier post I mentioned the that Pentagon had LIED about Abu Ghraib to the press, which meant they lied to you, their as their ostensible bosses. Although most of you who read this blog, having voted for Kerry, are no longer officially Americans (did you not get the memo?)

Well, here it is in print, the Pentagon's orchestration, with the full support of the White House to systematically lie to you, at their convenience, for the sake of "national security". Fan-damn-tastic. This will really throw of the Eurasians and Oceanians.

The Pentagon in 2002 was forced to shutter its controversial Office of Strategic Influence (OSI), which was opened shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, after reports that the office intended to plant false news stories in the international media. But officials say that much of OSI's mission — using information as a tool of war — has been assumed by other offices throughout the U.S. government.

Although most of the work remains classified, officials say that some of the ongoing efforts include having U.S. military spokesmen play a greater role in psychological operations in Iraq, as well as planting information with sources used by Arabic TV channels such as Al Jazeera to help influence the portrayal of the United States.

Other specific examples were not known, although U.S. national security officials said an emphasis had been placed on influencing how foreign media depict the United States.

These efforts have set off a fight inside the Pentagon over the proper use of information in wartime. Several top officials see a danger of blurring what are supposed to be well-defined lines between the stated mission of military public affairs — disseminating truthful, accurate information to the media and the American public — and psychological and information operations, the use of often-misleading information and propaganda to influence the outcome of a campaign or battle.

Several of those officials who oppose the use of misleading information spoke out against the practice on the condition of anonymity.

"The movement of information has gone from the public affairs world to the psychological operations world," one senior defense official said. "What's at stake is the credibility of people in uniform."

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said he recognized the concern of many inside the Defense Department, but that "everybody understands that there's a very important distinction between information operations and public affairs. Nobody has offered serious proposals that would blur the distinction between these two functions."

Di Rita said he had asked his staff for more information about how the Oct. 14 incident on CNN came about.

One recent development critics point to is the decision by commanders in Iraq in mid-September to combine public affairs, psychological operations and information operations into a "strategic communications" office. An organizational chart of the newly created office was obtained by The Times. The strategic communications office, which began operations Sept. 15, is run by Air Force Brig. Gen. Erv Lessel, who answers directly to Gen. George W. Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq.

...

...some in the military argue that the efforts at better "strategic communication" sometimes cross the line into propaganda, citing some recent media briefings held in Iraq. During a Nov. 10 briefing by Marine Lt. Gen. John F. Sattler, reporters were shown a video of Iraqi troops saluting their flag and singing the Iraqi national anthem.

"Pretty soon, we're going to have the 5 o'clock follies all over again, and it will take us another 30 years to restore our credibility," said a second senior Defense official, referring to the much-ridiculed daily media briefings in Saigon during the Vietnam War.

You know, if we did not engage in dubious wars to begin with, we would not have to feel it necessary to "win" the propoganda war.

Yet nobody ever seems to consider this plainly logical and simple idea.

Chimpy Goes to Canada

In a desperate attempt to repair relations with the country that should be our best friend, 'Dear Leader' heads to the Great White North. I believe the other purposes were to try to break the impasse in the NHL lock-out, and pick up some discount zoloft for Pickles.


"Hoser? What's a hoser?" By the way, now that the campaign is over, Bush isn't even trying to hide the wire anymore.


Doright & Dowrong. For the most part it went well, until Bush tried to make the mountie laugh, only to be reminded you do that in London, not Ottawa.


"This is okay and all, but where is the exhibit of 'Dogs playin' Poker'?"


Bush has a sit down photo op with Canadian Opposition Leader (they'd be the conservatives) Stephen Harper. Sadly for Canadians, Mr. Harper only has 84% of the value of George Bush, which frankly doesn't even seem possible.


The President visits an advanced science lab in Gatineau, Quebec, where he uses the equipment necessary to review his approval ratings in Canada.


Brainlock, actual footage.


"Where is this North Dakota of which he speaks?"

Drumroll please!

The nice thing about the insular, faith-based world, that Bushophiles live in, is the unintentional comedy.

"Tom Ridge wrote the preface and the first chapter to a long book that's going to be open for generations" -- the domestic war on terrorism, said Frank Cilluffo, a former associate of Ridge's in the Bush White House who now heads George Washington University's homeland security program. "A quite phenomenal amount has been done in only two years."

Uh-huh.

Tom Ridge did not write the preface, let alone the first chapter. He provided us with a tourist brochure, and gave us two colors we will never, ever, use again.

What an unbelievable fraud the Department of Homeland Security is.

Wow, the Bush Administration and Department of Defense Lied to Us?

Who'd of thunk it? It is so out of character.

Well, at least "up to" 51% of voters, like being lied to.

When Abu Ghraib broke last Spring, the Pentagon and the Bush Administration sure spent a lot of time saying "we just found out" and "it was just a few bad apples"

...oh, and their lackies were outraged by the outrage.

Well, it is the Bush Administration after all...

A confidential report to Army generals in Iraq in December 2003 warned that members of an elite military and CIA task force were abusing detainees, a finding delivered more than a month before Army investigators received the photographs from Abu Ghraib prison that touched off investigations into prisoner mistreatment.

The report, which was not released publicly and was recently obtained by The Washington Post, concluded that some U.S. arrest and detention practices at the time could "technically" be illegal. It also said coalition fighters could be feeding the Iraqi insurgency by "making gratuitous enemies" as they conducted sweeps netting hundreds of detainees who probably did not belong in prison and holding them for months at a time.

The investigation, by retired Col. Stuart A. Herrington, also found that members of Task Force 121 -- a joint Special Operations and CIA mission searching for weapons of mass destruction and high-value targets including Saddam Hussein -- had been abusing detainees throughout Iraq and had been using a secret interrogation facility to hide their activities.

Herrington's findings are the latest in a series of confidential reports to come to light about detainee abuse in Iraq. Until now, U.S. military officials have characterized the problem as one largely confined to the military prison at Abu Ghraib -- a situation they first learned about in January 2004. But Herrington's report shows that U.S. military leaders in Iraq were told of such allegations even before then, and that problems were not restricted to Abu Ghraib. Herrington, a veteran of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam, warned that such harsh tactics could imperil U.S. efforts to quell the Iraqi insurgency -- a prediction echoed months later by a military report and other reviews of the war effort.

U.S. treatment of detainees remains under challenge. Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross recently told U.S. military officials that the treatment of inmates held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was "cruel, inhumane and degrading" (story, Page A10). Herrington's report, which was commissioned by Maj. Gen. Barbara Fast, the top intelligence officer in Iraq, said some detainees dropped off at central U.S. detention facilities other than Abu Ghraib had clearly been beaten by their captors.

"Detainees captured by TF 121 have shown injuries that caused examining medical personnel to note that 'detainee shows signs of having been beaten,' " according to the report, which later concluded: "It seems clear that TF 121 needs to be reined in with respect to its treatment of detainees."

A group of Navy SEALs who worked as part of the task force has been charged with abuse in connection with the deaths of two detainees they arrested in the field. One died in a shower room at Abu Ghraib on Nov. 4, 2003, a month before Herrington arrived for his review.

...

Of the Herrington report, a Pentagon official said top generals in Iraq, including Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, who at the time directed U.S. forces there, reported the alleged abuses to officials at U.S. Central Command, which oversees military activities in the Middle East. The official said TF 121 was investigated, but he could not provide results.

"The Herrington report was taken very seriously," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the report has not been released.

The report also provided an early account of the practice of holding some detainees -- sometimes called "ghost detainees" -- in secret and keeping them from international humanitarian organizations. Herrington also wrote that agents from other government agencies, which commonly refers to the CIA, regularly kept ghost detainees by not logging their arrests.

Nearly six months later, Defense Department officials were forced to acknowledge the practice because of the Abu Ghraib scandal. Soldiers who worked at the prison said several detainees were hidden, and a prison logbook showed a consistent stream of them from October 2003 to January 2004.

There's more, there is always more.

Fucked Up World

You get brought into an institution of higher learning, that prides itself on supposedly putting morality (it is after all a denominational school), integrity, and academics first; is coming off the biggest scandals in its history. Over three years, you win more than you lose, you are praised for your morality, your integrity, and your players' academics. Meanwhile, the kids you actually recruited to come play for you, as opposed to players you inherited, are not going to make a significant impact until next year.

So naturally you are shit-canned!

Touchdown Jesus say it isn't so.

Colleges are more defined by their football or basketball teams then their academics.

Obviously, I'm like the 100 Millionth person to say this, but it is disgusting and it is only going to get worse if we let it.