And now for a look at the "How Sweet It Is! column

Hey Gents:
You have perhaps managed to tear yourselves away from coverage of Anna Nicole Smith's timely, yes timely demise to note that the Dixie Chicks won five, count 'em FIVE Grammy Awards for their latest album which includes the powerful anthem, "Not Ready To Make Nice."
Natalie Maines is a class act. She has shown that patriotism, used as a cudgel becomes just another brutish tool in the hands of a despot when it's used to stifle dissent. She is the true patriot. She stands at the head of a long line of celebrities who've risked their careers in turning their notoriety to a higher purpose. Jane Fonda, Neil Young and others...........heady company.
Ankh

rock, hard place

Trudy's columns (and this one) make me really wish there was a better way. A way we could keep Iraq from devolving into an anarchic mess. A way we could keep it from becoming a new Afghanistan With Oil.

But it's a dead end. The administration's known since August that they can't win, yet they say we should increase the troop levels. Fallujah's as big of a mess as it ever was. It's all Al Qaeda's fault, or the Iraqi's fault, not ours.

What to do? Imagine another another country started this mess, then left. How would we react? Would we try to play peacemaker (Balkans)? Push for NATO to jump in (Afghanistan, Pakistan)? Try to establish rule of law (Haiti)? Were those endeavors as hopeless as this?

AARRGGHGHHQ$*(!^#!

What a difference a day makes.......................

or, the Republican house of cards.
Amazing. And Rumsfeld on top of the heap. Though it seems Dubya was prepared for his departure(witness Gates' speedy appointment). Gates is an unknown entity to me. Interesting that a former spook is now Pentagon chief. Hopefully, it signals some concerted effort to steer military culture to the task of dealing with guerilla/terrorist entities vs. conventional armies(as Rummy self-purported to do).
Of course, what we should be about is reversing the conditions we have created that have created the current world order and its terrorist spawn. I despair at this nation ever becoming self-actualized to the point where we can accomplish this. Instead, we're mired at the bottom of Maslow's Hierarchy.
I have to admit to an immense satisfaction at what a stinging personal rebuke this is for Bush. Not to mention Santorum(Sanctimonium). His excision was very timely(the medical terminology is intended here). He was a cancer in the body politic. Invasive. Metastatic. Dangerously powerful for so malignant a personage.
Word to the newly empowered Democrats. Tread carefully. Be what we all found so winning in the best of "The West Wing".
Ankh

Scarier than Kim Jong-iL

From the friends across the pond. And these are our closest friends.

Not sure why this comes out now, not when it was declassified in 2004. More evidence that logic was trumped by idealism.

Stay and fail

O'Reilly asked Letterman if he wanted the US to win. Letterman's response was good (whatever it takes to get our boys home in one piece), but didn't go quite far enough. He should have asked what it meant to win. Does that mean repressing all insurgency? Does anyone think that is ever going to happen? The "year of the police" has turned out to be "the year of the police committing sectarian murder". Reports in the last week referred to accelerating training, like that wasn't already maxed out. Does anyone not see through that, a week before the elections? Barricading the slums of Sadr city surely didn't help win the hearts & minds of the locals. Many areas in Anbar are, and have been, under insurgent control.

It's not going to get better. The trend of the "Index of Civil Conflict" chart says it all, in plain enough language even a drunk bonehead could see it.

We're fighting for the right to stay in a country whose people don't want us there. To win is to force the submission of a hostile people, at the same time keeping mortal enemies from each other's throats. To win is to establish order so we can leave. I'll say that again. To win is to let our family, our loyal soldiers, and our $1b/week, come home. That is our current exit strategy. So blood, guts, sweat & tears, and enough cash to make Medicare solvent, are squandered to do something 10 years from now, when the same results could be achieved today.

Cut'n'run...............sounds like a plan

"If the U.S. leaves before the job is done, the enemy could follow us here." Quoted from a speech the president gave recently.

Fuck you, Mr. President................................let them follow us.........................

They've kicked our ass to a stalemate on their turf long enough. They control most of the battlefield. They pick away at our young service members with relative impunity. They die martyrs..........deluded, but happy to do so. We die for our "cause". A far less fulfilling fate.

So...................fuck you Dubya. Bring 'em home. Let's defend the Homeland from home. Let them be the strangers in a strange land.

Ankh

What I believe

Seems this blog has become somewhat of a backwater. Doesn't mean I'm thinking about things any less, just less time to indulge myself in writing about them.
Venezuelan President Chavez is a loose cannon, a buffoon. He'll probably ultimately end up hurting his country, but he's right in his criticism of the U.S. , and specifically the Bush administration. To be fair, the Bush administration didn't create the foreign policy that's gotten us to this point geopolitically, but the administration is guilty of actively devolving U.S. foreign policy to its current blunt and hegemonistic state.
We should be about a foreign policy along the lines of the Bono/Gates/Buffet/Sauros model. Instead, we've spent the last few decades banging around the world in a bull-in-a-china-shop, petrocentric frenzy, trying to spread democracy to cultures not disposed to practice it or adopt it on our timetable.
We have, in large part, created the terrorists we're currently fighting.
On a related, and far more personally scary note, does anyone else see reinstatement of the draft on the horizon?
Ankh

Ariel Sharon revisited

Can you say...........Generalissimo Francisco Franco? This is soooo NOT right:

JERUSALEM -
Ariel Sharon' name=c1> SEARCHNews News Photos Images Web' name=c3> Ariel Sharon's condition has deteriorated, the hospital where the ailing former Israeli prime minister is being treated announced Monday. A spokeswoman wouldn't say whether Sharon's life was in danger, but said doctors were treating him with broad-spectrum antibiotics and steroids.

A new scan showed a deterioration in his brain function, his urine output has decreased significantly and a chest scan showed that he has a new infection in his lungs, according to Anat Dolev, spokeswoman for the Chaim Sheba Medical Center.
Sharon, 78, has been in a coma since suffering a massive stroke Jan. 4. He underwent several extensive brain surgeries to stop cerebral hemorrhaging, in addition to more minor procedures.
After spending months in the hospital where he was initially treated, Sharon was transferred to the long-term care facility at Sheba hospital in May.
Sharon was rushed into intensive care July 26 to undergo dialysis because his kidneys were failing. Hospital officials said they also noticed changes in his brain membrane.
In December, Sharon had a small stroke. He was put on blood thinners and then suffered the severe brain hemorrhage in January.

Papal/Presidential infallibility

I can laughingly ignore the concept/doctrine of papal infallability. But the concept and(according to this article) doctrine of presidential infallability is very troubling. What am I to think and how am I to act though when the large volume of alarmist opinion on the present administration's sins has had no effect? Everything in this piece basically makes sense to me, but I despair of Bush and his cronies ever being brought to account for their abuse of power.
Ankh

YouTube - Robin Williams

YouTube - Robin Williams

21 minutes and 24 seconds you'll never get back. You won't mind though........

media bias

WaPo's lead sentence -

The Supreme Court today delivered a stunning rebuke to the Bush administration over its plans to try Guantanamo detainees before military commissions, ruling that the commissions are unconstitutional.

FoxNews' lead sentence -

The Supreme Court delivered a blow to the Bush administration's anti-terror policies Thursday when it ruled that the president was out of line when he ordered military war-crimes trials for some Guantanamo Bay detainees.

random thoughts, brain farts............

'Lo all;
Time to crank this machine over a time or two. It's been three months that we've been otherwise occupied;^)
The automotive industry is trying to put independent garages out of business. Was talking to my garageman today and he was describing to me how ridiculously difficult they have made what would otherwise have been routine repairs by how they engineer cars. I.E., accessing the gas tank assembly on many new cars requires either dropping the entire rear drive assembly or lifting the entire body off the chassis. Dealers are equipped to do this in a cost effective manner, while independents are left to offer only pricey roundabout approaches.
We were also talking about the allure of living off the grid in some manner. My garageman has not paid an oil/electric/gas company to heat his home or business for 17 years now. He heats his home with a wood stove, and will start burning corn next year. The advantage of corn is that it's cheaper than wood($70 a ton vs. +/- $180 a cord), and more easily manageable. Also burns very clean. He heats his business with waste motor oil that he would otherwise have to pay to recycle. His furnace is equipped with catalytic converters to comply with EPA regs. Rather inefficient as a fuel source, so he is now using machining cooling oil(you know, the stuff they squirt on metal lathes to keep machined pieces from overheating). According to him, the stuff burns much hotter and more cleanly than motor oil, it's free(machining businesses are eager to get rid of it instead of paying to recycle it),and all he has to do is sign a paper stating what he's using it for. We also discussed running cars on either pure ethanol or recycled cooking oils. Being able to use my automotive fuel for margueritas and/or having my car exhaust smell like french fries(is it P.C. to call them that again?) are both attractive prospects. Not to mention it's a totally renewable(internally) energy resource. What could be the hold-up with converting the automotive industry to this?......................that's a rhetorical question;^).................though I'd bet CT could answer it in ways that never crossed my mental radar:^)
I have often thought about putting an array of solar collectors in the field opposite our home. The thought of putting energy back into the grid is tantalizing. Too many other pressing things to use the $ for though.
Lots of other stuff knocking about my cranium, but that's all I have time for now.
Ankh

mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world

Bushy in a band called "Deficit Attention Disorder"? That's rich, coming from this fiscally reckless administration. You couldn't make this stuff up.

Hope Mr. Bolton's band doesn't cover The Clash or Zeppelin. My god, have we completely lost it? Hope they don't catch me listening to this. Or this. Or this. Or this.

As usual Keillor has a synapse-scratcher. Not sure I care for the defeatism, but then what are we really going to do about it?

This speaks volumes

Yeah, I know what I said, but this shit just keeps welling up from the cesspool of our political backyard.
Mr. Bolton, the new chief of staff at the White House is in a band called "Deficit Attention Disorder". Political correctness would seem to dictate that you keep a fact like that out of the press. Is political correctness now passe too?
Ankh

Sorry, just couldn't resist..............................

...................this, excerpted from Salon:

At one point, speaker Herb Titus held up a copy of Kevin Phillips' "American Theocracy," offering it as evidence of the putative war on Christians. It was an audacious move, given that Sara Diamond, the preeminent scholar of the Christian right, reported in a 1998 book that Titus was forced to resign his post as dean of the law school at Pat Robertson's Regent University because he refused to renounce Christian Reconstructionism. Christian Reconstructionism is a theocratic sect that advocates the replacement of civil law with biblical law, including the execution of homosexuals, apostates and women who are unchaste before marriage. Christian Reconstructionists used to be politically radioactive, but a new generation of religious right leaders like Scarborough have embraced them, and some members of today's GOP apparently see no problem associating with them. This does not mean that America is on the verge of theocracy, but it signals an important shift. The language of religious authoritarianism has become at least somewhat politically acceptable.

THESE people are the Antichrist......................and I'm only half kidding:^~

Ankh

Notice of inactivity

Haven't dropped out, but current events(personal and local) will distract me from opining here for the forseeable future.
Ankh

conversation starters

and the requisite Gitmo whinings.

How many places could you go with this story? 2 at least... (left and right? oops, no that brings the total to 4+). Although you would think kidneys and hearts would be a higher priority.

Nice idea, but you have to wonder how much heat & pressure had to be added to turn cow crap into gas (modern alchemy?). Is it a net energy loss, like ethanol?

Unrelated topic, just a nicely written essay on immigration.

Interpersonal skills - left wanting.

Cronkite on the insanity of the other war.

Can't you just picture this guy on a snowboard? That'll turn that frown upside down.

And turning it back into a frown. Tears optional.

Now turning to Guantanemo Bay -
For those paying attention, these stories are nothing new. Stories of abuse and unjust imprisonment have been in the public for many times, a few linked to in posts months ago. It still sucks, maybe now that it's getting more visibility the average ignorant American will wake up... yeah, whatever. But stuck in Cuba sleeping on a sheet metal bed (albiet with thin mattress) for 3 years because of a geek watch?

This quote from the Israeli supreme court's decision on torture says it all -

Such interrogation led Wilkerson to cite Aharon Barak, the chief of the Israeli
Supreme Court, which ruled against the torture of prisoners in 1999. "This is
the destiny of a democracy, as not all means are acceptable to it, and not all
practices employed by its enemies are open before it," Barak wrote in the
decision. "Although a democracy must often fight with one hand tied behind its
back, it nonetheless has the upper hand."

shut it down

already. Even the Brits say so now. If this country is going to reclaim it's moral high ground, then that has to happen first. And even George Will thinks something is wrong in the White House. If you can get past his obfuscating vocabulary.

But Gibson is still a butthead. Negative comments aren't allowed, because the Pres can do whatever he wants anyways. GAFC. Just made up that acronym. Any guesses?

Gotta love this quote -
The Day I Don't Look at Pretty Girls, I Die'. True so as it goes. Too bad he goes a lot farther - like having the "little girl" walk back in and out of the room so he can watch her.

Here's an interesting column. Wonder what the evangelists would think of this Einstein nugget - "Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods." They give religion a bad name.

More quotes from Einstein. For a geek, he had some profound insights.

From NOW on PBS this evening(2/17/06)

The main story was related to the practice of "earmarking" bills in the process of passing them. This allows lawmakers to appropriate obscene amounts of pork barrel funds for pet projects without any effective oversight.
Of note, Sen. Bill Frist(powerful Republican, self-styled hero and presidential hopeful) inserted a provision into a bill that(in broad language) basically protects the pharmaceutical industry from any and all lawsuits. This is an alternate form of earmarking. Interestingly, Mr. Frist has received $270,000 in political funding from the drug lobby.
While I'm enumerating Mr. Frist's virtues, it should be remembered that he was one of the prime posturers in the path of Mark Sciavo's efforts, on his wife's behalf to shuffle off her mortal coil.
These things bear remembering come election time.
Ankh

At Least 10 Killed in Libya Cartoon Riot

Y'know, it strikes me(and this is decidedly unPC) that if we keep publishing cartoons, all of the radicalized, militant Islamists will eventually kill themselves off.................................without need for further intervention.
Ankh

Oh.......................this is rich;^)

Sorry, I tried the link thing............................bad kharma. Check out any news service.
Dick Cheney peppered one of his hunting buddies with buckshot whilst quail hunting.
D'Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Picture Sid Caesar's vintage skit of the spazzy hunter waving a shotgun about. Knowing the victim will be okay permits a hearty belly laugh:^)
Such comic relief from the Bush administration is all too rare.
Ankh

The flogging continues.................

Ariel Sharon is this generation's Generalissimo Francisco Franco. What a terrible fate, when nationalistic reverence and the embodiment of a national identity unite to negate individual and familial suffering.
Some politico/medical mouthpiece declared that the surgery was routine. Done every day in hospitals worldwide. True, but about as truthful as Dubya saying to good citizens in the hinterlands at a town meeting a couple of years ago that all wiretapping indulged in by the administration required(and had) federal warrants. But I digress. I'll bet the price of a new snowblower that Sharon infarcted his bowel. This is an emergency that(if not caught and remedied quickly) is invariably fatal. Indeed, it's frequently fatal even when it's caught fairly early in its course.
The point of all this is that it's not Sharon's welfare that hangs in the balance. His personal welfare is moot. It's the welfare of the current Israeli power structure that's on life support.
My thoughts are with Ariel Sharon and his family.
Ankh

Unleash Nerd Fury

That title isn't really doesn't have anything to do with this post, but the quote from Colbert's "The Word" segment was too good to not steal. I can't imagine how they write "The Word", but it's f'ing brilliant.

Anyways, back to the Reality Based Community... Or not. As we posited long ago, facts have nothing to do with politics -

"None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged"

Intelligent critiques from both Patrick Buchanon and Garrison Keillor.

Unfortunately facts decide the fate of the world, not our emotional whims. As we long suspected, and as has been argued with evidentiary support on more than one occasion, the rush to war was not based on facts, instead facts were fabricated or doctored to support policy. Any doubt is dispelled in today's WP. Full article here. Not only was the justification fabricated, the accurate prediction of the aftermath was ignored.

"If the entire body of official intelligence analysis on Iraq had a policy implication," Pillar wrote, it was to avoid war -- or, if war was going to be launched, to prepare for a messy aftermath."

Pillar describes for the first time that the intelligence community did assessments before the invasion that, he wrote, indicated a postwar Iraq "would not provide fertile ground for democracy" and would need "a Marshall Plan-type effort" to restore its economy despite its oil revenue. It also foresaw Sunnis and Shiites fighting for power.

Pillar wrote that the intelligence community "anticipated that a foreign occupying force would itself be the target of resentment and attacks -- including guerrilla warfare -- unless it established security and put Iraq on the road to prosperity in the first few weeks or months after the fall of Saddam."

Pillar wrote that the first request he received from a Bush policymaker for an assessment of post-invasion Iraq was "not until a year into the war."

That assessment, completed in August 2004, warned that the insurgency in Iraq could evolve into a guerrilla war or civil war. It was leaked to the media in September in the midst of the presidential campaign, and Bush, who had told voters that the mission in Iraq was going well, described the assessment to reporters as "just guessing."

Rain sucks!............miscellaneous musings

"We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience." Susan St. James

The administration's(and in particular, Rumsfeld's) vilification of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez and Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is eerily reminiscent of their prewar treatment of Saddam Hussein. Will we finally withdraw from Iraq only to turn our bellicose attention to Venezuela? Is Bush's (covert) plan to wean us from our addiction to Middle East oil ultimately a smokescreen for toppling another detractor and seizing his (considerable) oil reserves? I'm only a little more sanguine about our posturing toward Iran. The thought of tactical nukes in the hands of Islamic fundamentalists is terrifying. Hell, look what WE did with them, and we're civilized(no Truman bashing intended).

Mortality was buzzing about my brain at work last night. Not the overt, traumatic kind. The quiet, sucker-punch kind. I'm caring for a late, middle-aged person who, since November has been dealing with a particularly malignant brain tumor. Salt-of-the-earth kind of human. Vital, active, loving, intact family(a rarity in my line of work). This will likely be fatal within a few months. How does one reconcile that? Even from my there-but-for-the-grace-of-God-go-I vantage point, after 20+ years, I can't.

Hook me up Ne'er(or any of you other silent souls),
Ankh

Addendum: How'd we(the U.S. of A.) manage to stay out of the fray over the violently disputed cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad? I must side with muslims in general on this one. It's no less irresponsible, offensive or wrong than flying the swastika, the rebel colors or any other White Power drivel. It's incitement in the guise of freedom of speech. With freedom comes responsibility.