Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
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As promised to - although I suppose not requested by - the readers of this blog (Hi Dad!) here are the non-Iraq related findings of today's lunch hour's surfing:
and High stupidity.
I thought long and hard about linking to this story because it seems so inflammatory. And I know that the US soldiers over there are, by vast majority, good people whose talents are being misused and lives are being destroyed by a repugnant leadership.
But I read this story last night (in another publication that I'm unable to find now), I couple it with the gruesome scenes from this current scandal, and my guts get all wrenched up about it. Human beings are not supposed to do this to each other, no matter what.
This catastrophe may get muffled in the western press and plenty of Americans will give their denial or rationalization muscles a good stretch, but count on the scenes getting beamed into living rooms throughout the Arab - and wider Muslim - world, helping to inspire legions of jihadis.
I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, when stating David Brooks had his head up his *ss reducing the present conflict to good guys and bad, that "This is not a John Wayne movie; there's not a hat in Mesopotamia either white or black right now. The only generalization you can make is that the current situation makes all manner of people do things they wouldn't otherwise do; all the hats are turning darker shades of grey." And that thought will now stick with me daily.
It is too depressing and tomorrow I will return to blogging about space or cool science or humorous content in the world wide web. If you want Iraq commentary you'll have to wait a few days.
An Iranian court has ruled the United States should pay $600 million in compensation for supplying ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with chemical weapons, the official IRNA news agency said on Wednesday. IRNA said the money in the case, brought by Iranian war veterans and disabled, should be paid to survivors of attacks on the town of Sardasht which borders Iraq.
I'm not telling anybody anything they didn't know when I say that mistrust characterizes Persian-American relations. But it's so much so that in Iran things as mundane as UFOs are being blamed on Americans.
Is Iran about to be invaded by little green men or are the Americans racing through the night sky in spaceships to spy on their arch-foe the Islamic Republic? Flying saucer fever has gripped Iran after dozens of sightings in the last few days. Fanciful cartoons of alien spacecraft have adorned the front pages.
They may not get their $600M claim or their acknowledgement of using extraterrestrial technology to spy on them, but at least they're getting their 2500 year-old tablets back.
Three hundred ancient clay tablets that help provide information on the languages and daily life in the Persian empire are headed back to Iran in what University of Chicago officials have described as the first U.S. return of loaned Iranian artifacts since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. The clay tablets are 2,500 years old and have provided historians with details about everyday life then, down to the daily ration of barley and beer for workers.
I'd really love to go to Iran someday, but I'm scared to. And that sucks.
Every once in a while you read something that draws a parallel so obvious you're stunned by how dumb you must be to have not thought of it yourself. Substitute "I" and "my" for "you" in that last sentence and that's precisely my reaction to this piece by David Neiwert at Orcinus that draws this analogy. My own rather unsophisticated simplification is that the impulse to "just do something" can be overwhelming and the mob mentality, however loosely collected via the media from which we all receive our information regarding developing crises, takes on its own momentum and culminates in rash decisions we generally regret. But those who order the "just do something" actions are seldom capable of doing so, or at least publicly admitting it.
The al-Najaf problem is a microcosm of the larger problem of the Bush administration's misbegotten approach to dealing with terrorism. Rather than recognize the assymetrical, often corpuscular nature of terrorism and come to terms with its origins in unaddressed grievances with an intelligent strategy that undermines those sources and does not inflame and worsen them, Bush has taken a course precisely 180 degrees removed: Use the brute force and bludgeoning power of the military, largely in the vain hope of asserting American dominance as a way of discouraging anyone from challenging it.
In that sense, the entire misadventure in Iraq resembles the fiasco at Waco: Too impatient to let inspections and diplomacy work their course, Bush ordered a military invasion of another nation without reckoning all of the consequences of doing so. Most significant among those consequences is the high likelihood of actually undermining any serious effort at actually attacking terrorism at the source.
David was a journalist and specialist in "Patriot" movements, somewhat America's unique brand of Taliban, in the mid 1990s. He was also one of the first to intuit that the Oklahoma City bombing was the work of home-grown right wing militias, running counter to the immediate suspicions, a mere six years premature, focused on Islamic terrorists.
With the historically rooted mistrust of western (read: Christian) powers, the regional economic undevelopment and poverty not-so-ironically coupled with the oil wealth and our gasoline addiction, and finally the powerful role martyrdom plays in the religious fundamentalism unintentionally stimulated (although forewarned from many quarters) by invading and occupying Iraq, I think it will be a long, long time before American citizens will be able to travel to this birthplace of civilization safely.
The exchange of ideas is what leads to the marginalization of radicalism, democracy and pluralism, freedom, and economic improvement. That cause has been set back. The internet can play a powerful role in compensating for the schism widened by armed conflict. Juan Cole has a collection of infomative Middle Eastern, especially Iraqi, bloggers and experts. I hope the keyboard is mightier than the missile. Additionally, CSM has a good piece today on Muqtada al-Sadr, presently holed up in Najaf, and his family that is definitely worth reading.
The Bush administration is adamant that they will hand "sovereignty" over to the Iraqis on June 30th. Funny word, that one. Merriam-Webster gives three definitions, though the first one is designated obsolete and the third is a less-than-helpful, self-referential "one that is sovereign." So let's focus on definition two:
2 a: supreme power especially over a body politic b: freedom from external control : AUTONOMY c: controlling influence
Okay, that's pretty straightforward, right? Oh, wait. This is sovereignty as defined by the Bush administration, for whom a word means exactly what they intend it to mean - nothing more, nothing less.
Iraqis will have "a lot more sovereignty than they have right now" after the June 30 handover, but the United States will still control security and the caretaker government won't be able to make laws, the Bush administration's nominee to be ambassador to Iraq said Tuesday. [...] "It is visualized that the Iraqi forces will come under the command of (U.S.-led) multinational forces," Negroponte said as senators pushed for quick approval of the man who will be "at the epicenter of international efforts" in Iraq. "If political leadership should favor some particular strategy," but the U.S. military decides that another strategy is better, "these are the kind of questions that (all sides) will have to deal with," Negroponte said.
In other words, Iraq will be a sovereign nation whose government cannot make laws and whose military will be under the command of a foreign occupying force. Interesting. "Look dear, I know you want this badly, so on the 1st of July, we'll start calling you pregnant, okay? You won't actually have a baby inside you and your body won't undergo any changes, but you'll still be a lot more pregnant than you are now..."
And I mean 'to go really far'
In parallel with the DELTA Mission, two Russian cosmonauts on the International Space Station (ISS) - Alexander Kaleri and Gennadi Padalka - will perform the Mediet (Mediterranean Diet) experiment, demonstrating the use of the Mediet food system on board the ISS.
The Mediet food, made from top quality Mediterranean products, will serve to demonstrate that the 'fast food' of the 21st century can be delicious and nutritious at the same time. The tray serves as a prototype of the system, which may be used in extreme environments on Earth, as well as during travelling, or simply when time for cooking, or a table to sit behind, are not available.
With a bottle of Primitivo, the Italian astronauts will feel right at home.
Boingboing provides several links for the Star Wars Kid - Kill Bill mash-up. Don't miss it.
Today's the day.
And just in case you're having trouble remembering...
The main point is that the Vice President finds it unacceptable that the public should know who was involved in drafting the nation's energy policy at this time of extreme anxiety over global climatic and political stability, both of which are directly related to our dependence on fossil fuels.
The task force that should by any measure serve, above all others, THE PUBLIC, drafted this crucial policy for the exclusive benefit of the energy producing industry, with which the administration is inextricably entwined.
In a bit of coming full-circle, the Executive Director of the task force advanced, after overseeing the drafting of the plan and subsequent legislation, to work for several energy producing firms as... yes... a lobbyist for that very legislation.
And as a somewhat tangential, but very disconcerting, issue the Court deciding the case includes the Vice President's hunting buddy who refuses to recuse himself from the decision.
This case hovers at the very heart of what these United States of America are supposed to be and how the current administration of the executive branch of her government has an utter disregard for what demo- (the people) -cracy (rule by) is.
Hyperbolic? I think not. It's a biscuit, and it has a crux.
Simulated people be keepin' it real.
Electronic Arts today announced that The URBZ (*working title) is in development for the PlayStation 2 computer entertainment system, the Xbox video game system from Microsoft, the Nintendo GameCube, and the Nintendo Game Boy Advance. For the first time, Sims are living in the city where reputation (rep) is everything. Players will custom-create these new Sims, called Urbz, by customizing their unique style and building their status to become the biggest "player" in the city.
[...]
The game's style captures the pulse of the action-packed downtown, ritzy shopping districts, Bohemian artist workshops, and a gritty subway station. Players create their Urbz using a new character customisation engine to show off attitude and unique style, as well as signature "bling" such as tattoos and nose rings. Players build relationships to increase their rep, influence other Urbz, and gain access to city districts, jobs, and lifestyles. Gaining access to all districts in the city, being able to live in any district, live any lifestyle, and become the biggest "player" in the city is the ultimate goal.
The URBZ will support the Sony EyeToy. Players will download their image into the game with the Sony EyeToy and as their rep grows; their image or their Urbz image will begin to be reflected in the game.
Ever deeper travels in hyperreality.
From the rest of the apostropher.com research, business development, editorial, and production and post-production staff, which would be... um... me, may you both find many, many joyous years together and many, many fine wines on the Italian peninsula. The Apostropher and his Lovely Lady took way too much time to finally fall in love; but they are a perfect match and better late than never.
Since the stability of the universe depends on balance, here are three interesting stories about being early: specifically claims regarding the earliest automobile,
A spring-propelled car that Leonardo da Vinci conceived five centuries ago could have paved the way for the Mars rovers, researchers say. Researchers took eight months to translate one of da Vinci's drawings to build a one-third scale wooden model of the early car.
Discoveries made during a dig in southeastern Iran have convinced archaeologist Yousef Madjidzadeh that a desolate valley here was once home to a thriving—and literate—community. He calls it nothing less than "the earliest Oriental civilization." It's a dramatic assertion, but if he's right, it would mean the site, near Iran's Halil River, is older than Mesopotamia, a thousand miles to the west in what is today Iraq and long acknowledged as one of the earliest civilizations. Confirmation would overturn our understanding of the critical period when humans first began to live a literate urban life. It would also give sudden prominence to this forgotten corner of Iran.
and the earliest lifeforms
Geologists have discovered microscopic burrows where some of Earth's earliest lifeforms bored their way into volcanic glass 3.5 billion years ago. The tubes, from rocks in South Africa's Barberton Greenstone Belt, retain traces of organic carbon left behind by the microorganisms, the authors say. The microbes etched their way into rocks that formed as lava oozed out across a sea floor in Archaean times.
Running late; gotta go...
I haven't had much time to write what with all the goings-on in work and life. I got hitched for the second time last week (sorry, ladies) and we take off Wednesday morning for a couple of weeks in Italy. As with everything else in my life, I've waited until the last minute to pack and buy stuff and all those things normal people (like her) do. Accordingly, I doubt I'll get much chance to post before I go.
Aside from those happy distractions, I've been watching the deepening disaster in Iraq with dismay and anger, but mostly with a sense of futility. No good options left and I don't really trust Kerry to choose the least bad option. That situation hasn't been inspiring much eloquence and, in fact, has made me just want to avoid the news altogether. If you're not to that point yet, you should be reading Billmon, Steve Gilliard, Empire Notes, and Juan Cole daily as an antidote to the contextless reports coming from the major media.
I now leave you in Froz's hands 'til mid-May, when I hope to return recharged. Arrivederci.
(Cue Cole Porter) Birds do it, bees do it, teens and trannies up in trees do it...
Two gay lovers took off most of their clothes, climbed up a tree in New York's Central Park and spent four hours engaging in sex acts and yelling abuse at police and firefighters. Police said officers talked the men out of the three story high tree on Thursday night after the parks department had sent two cherry-pickers and firefighters had deployed an inflatable rescue mattress. The couple, described by officials as a 32-year-old transsexual with female breasts wearing a purple thong and a 17-year-old boy in white boxer shorts, were admitted to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation.
At one point during the standoff in the larch tree -- an evergreen with pine-like needles -- the 32-year-old rejected a police officer's offer of a can of soda. "This is a Coke. I wanted vanilla Diet Pepsi," he was quoted as saying in newspaper reports.
Hands up everybody who thinks amphetamines were involved here.
Jeralyn Merritt points out another difference between Bush and Kerry's records during Vietnam, and this one actually is one they can both put behind them.
John Kerry suffered multiple sharpnel wounds to his buttocks when an enemy mine detonated near his swift boat. Despite the wounds and intense sniper fire from both riverbanks, Kerry rescued a fellow soldier who had fallen overboard and earned a Bronze Star for his valor.
George Bush developed a hemorrhoid while flying a Texas Air National Guard jet to protect the shores of South Padre Island.
Is there any doubt about whose buttocks should be in the Oval Office on January 21, 2005?
The administration, in a rear guard action, will be issuing a rebuttal shortly, since this story damn near wrecked 'em.
Sounds like it's from the Onion, but unfortunately it's not.
A funeral home employee discovered Allah Saturday on top of the corpse with his pants around his ankles, passed out drunk, according to police spokesman Dewayne Tully. [...] He is being charged with two counts of sexual assault upon a person who is unconscious or unaware and one count of burglary.
Update (4/24, 12:28 am): The DA's office only charged Mr. Allah with two counts of trespassing and one count of stolen property, because it turns out there aren't actually any laws on the books in California that say it's illegal to have sex with corpses. Can't dig 'em up, you can't mutilate 'em, but for the time being, Golden Staters can still make sweet love to cadavers.
[Asst. DA] Ivancevich said that the maximum sentence for possession of stolen property is three years but that it was unlikely Allah would get the full sentence since the stolen property was only a key. There is even the slight possibility that Allah could get off with probation and time served if he is convicted of the current charges.
On April 23, 2003, Andrew S. Natsios, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, laid out in a televised interview the costs to U.S. taxpayers of rebuilding Iraq. "The American part of this will be $1.7 billion," he said. "We have no plans for any further-on funding for this." [...] Similarly, a report by the White House Office of Management and Budget in late March 2003, said: "Iraq will not require sustained aid." Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, in February 2003, dismissed reports that Pentagon budget specialists had put the cost of reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion during the first year -- in retrospect, relatively accurate forecasts. In testimony to Congress on March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz said Iraq "can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." In fact, the administration has already sought more than $150 billion for the Iraq effort.
In its predictions a year ago, the Bush administration similarly underestimated the resistance the United States would face in Iraq. "I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators," Vice President Cheney said in a March 16 interview. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz derided a general's claim that pacifying Iraq would take several hundred thousand U.S. troops. And Rumsfeld, in February 2003, predicted that the war "could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."
Those predictions became inoperative in short order, as costs began to skyrocket and resistance intensified. Apparently, even the revised estimates are about to get ratcheted upwards again. Way, way upwards.
Washington Post: War May Require More Money Soon
Since Congress approved an $87 billion defense request last year, the administration has steadfastly maintained that military forces in Iraq will be sufficiently funded until early next year. President Bush's budget request for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 included no money for Iraqi operations, and his budget director, Joshua B. Bolten, said no request would come until January at the earliest.
[...]
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.), vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, charged that the president is playing political games by postponing further funding requests until after the election, to try to avoid reopening debate on the war's cost and future. Weldon described the administration's current defense budget request as "outrageous" and "immoral" and said that at least $10 billion is needed for Iraqi operations over the next five months.
Marketplace: Spoils of War
Who's watching the money as it streams through Baghdad? Just about no one, and bribes and black marketeering are rampant, witnesses say. A leading anti-corruption group claims as much as 90 percent of U.S. money spent in Iraq is being lost to corruption. From Halliburton subsidiaries charging double for gas, Iraqi officials and Arabic translators unrestrained from pocketing millions of dollars, or even members of the interim governing Council accusing each other of taking tens of millions in bribes. Trouble is, the root of the problem can't be found anywhere near the Green Zone. Try the White House, and Capitol Hill, where oversight of Iraqi construction crews and U.S. contractors like Halliburton has only just begun to be assigned… more than a year after the war began.
New York Post: We May Need Draft for Iraq
A senator said yesterday that the United States might have to reinstate the military draft to cope with the shortage of soldiers in strife-torn Iraq. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) told a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the burden of military service is being borne by the middle and lower-middle classes. "Why shouldn't we ask all our citizens to bear some responsibility and pay some price?" Hagel asked. Meanwhile, the Pentagon is ordering hundreds - possibly thousands - of American troops to be prepared to ship out to Iraq on a moment's notice if the security situation continues to deteriorate, top officials disclosed yesterday.
I suppose we can now place these estimates alongside the administration's estimates of how many jobs the tax cuts would produce, the cost of their Medicare bill, and their promise to cut the deficit in half. Think the term "fuzzy math" might reappear in this election's debates?
With an' achin'... yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm off to the City by the Bay for the rest of the week. Maybe I'll get a chance to say hello from out there and maybe not.
But before I go I'd like to share some images and else about the coolest tree I had the good fortune to see in bloom Sunday: The Dove Tree, Davidia involucrata, also known as the Handkerchief Tree. Saw it at UNC Chapel Hill's Arboretum while on a Sunday picninc.
The flowers, which are just out-of-this-world, hang down like handkerchiefs (hence the name) and flutter in the breeze. The bracts look like white leaves until you get up close. It is native to China and this specimen is descended from plants brought over in the 1870s.
Last night, the six-year-old junior apostropher and I were watching "The Pirates of the Caribbean." At one point, the pirates have the female lead on their boat, and two of them bring her an evening gown with the instructions that she should wear it and join the captain for dinner. She tells them she will not and they reply (paraphrased to the best of my memory): "The captain said you'd say that. In that case, you'll be eating with the crew. Naked."
My son - the same first-grader who makes icky faces and gagging noises at on-screen kisses - looks at me and says, "I'd like to see her naked. She's pretty."
Acutely aware of my ultimate responsibility for his moral development, I was completely at a loss for how to respond to that. I scurried around frantically in my head, looking for the proper parental rejoinder, but finally just settled on: "Yeah, me too."
Implemented ten years ago this week, this was the policy result stemming from the "Timber Summit" held very early in the Clinton-Gore years. Everybody hated it but was willing to go along, which given the circumstances, probably meant it was moving in the right direction. Israelis and Palestinians show themselves to be only slightly more stubborn than loggers and environmentalists of the Northwest woods. The forests, under unrelenting and crescending pressure for better than a hundred years got a huge reprieve and the boom of the 90's helped to offset the unavoidable economic dislocation.
Economies are showing signs of development independent of addiction to natural resource extraction, forests are being better protected, and there's a glut on the wood products market. So why is Bush eliminating and rewriting, respectively, NWFP's two major provisions as a giveaway to the largest timbering companies?
On March 23, 2004, the Bush Administration made two serious changes in the rules that govern logging in federal forests from Northern California to the Canadian border, changes that will bring back destructive logging practices of the past. This comes on the 10th anniversary of the landmark plan that brought an end to rampant clear-cutting in the Northwest's public forests.
The two provisions are: (1) Survey and Manage - Tracts with late-successional or old-growth forests on them have to be intensively studied ecologically before harvesting, and (2) Aquatic Conservation Strategy - All harvests have to be accompanied by plans and measures for water quality protection. Survey and Manage has been eliminated; ACS has been weakened by removing any focus on small watersheds. Well, large watersheds are made up of small watersheds... but whatever.
An ecological problem is very much like an economic one. Ask anybody who has fought with credit card debt; You can not consume your way out of it. There are many reasons to be baffled by why this policy change in this place... Oh, yeah.
...the changes will have catastrophic social consequences, destroying the coalitions that have developed among the region's business, environmental and labor groups and setting the stage for a "train wreck" of endless litigation and disruptive civil disobedience...
"Some forests will be affected, others won't," said Jim Furnish, the former supervisor for the Siuslaw National Forest in western Oregon and a former forest service deputy chief. But the changes, said Furnish, "are tragic because it's picking the scab off an old wound, and all for a small timber industry upside. The changes were just the first step. Now you're going to see a counterattack by the environmentalists, and it will be by any and all means."
He's a uniter, not a divider. Gore won Oregon by 7,000 votes, where Nader got 77,000; Gore won Washington by 137,000 votes where Nader got 103,000. Guess he thinks they're in play. Polarize and conquer; consequences be damned.
Hey, wait a minute. That's not me.*
In fact, I'm pretty sure I couldn't ever pass as a "glow-in-the-dark lesbo," what with not glowing and having testicles and all. Fortunately, my archives start five months earlier than hers so when I become rich and famous and the trademark lawsuit rolls around, I think I'll have the inside track.
*This, however, is me, should you require me in that format.
Strangest news quote of the morning:
Senor said no offensive U.S. military operations will be carried out if residents of Fallujah, a city of about 250,000 people that is 35 miles (56 kilometers) from Baghdad, turn in banned weapons and "move to eliminate remaining foreign fighters, criminals and drug users from the city."
What?
Seems there was some sort of college student riot in Ames, Iowa early Sunday morning. After police broke up a party about midnight, hundreds of enraged (and when I say enraged, I mean shit-faced drunk) students began uprooting lightpoles and parking meters, breaking windows of businesses, and raining bottles on police. The predictable police response apparently involved lots of mace and pepper spray. Clashes continued until 5:30 in the morning.
Now, I've lived in college towns since I was about 6 years old, including a six-year stint as an honest-to-god college student, so I've seen this before. I'm certain it seems like very big news to the Iowa State student body and the residents of the town, but the only unusual circumstance here is that ISU hadn't won some sort of athletic championship that evening, the happy event that normally starts violent, destructive riots by upper-middle class kids in khakis.
So why bother even to note this story? Only for the two sentences that cracked me up. The first is the photo caption: "A riot participator pushes a flaming dumper down Lincolnway..." The second: "We're having fun," said Derek Weber, of Dike, as he walked away from a lamp post he and others pulled from the ground. "This is about us leaving the bars and them gassing us."
Yeah. Fun. Iowa must be just boring as hell.
Slate has a good slide show essay about an intriguing art exhibit.
For nearly a year, a vandal mutilated more than 600 books on gay and lesbian themes at the San Francisco Public Library. Without explanation, he carved up covers and pages and left small typewritten slips of paper advertising a Bible radio station tucked inside the damaged works. Ironically, his attempt to rid the library of these books resulted in a far stronger statement from the community: With help from artists around the country, the San Francisco Public Library transformed the crime into an art show titled "Reversing Vandalism," which features more than 200 works of various mediums and is on view in three galleries at the library through May 2.
The vandal - a quiet, middle-aged apartment security guard with no criminal record - had a rather expansive view of what constituted the protocols of the gay agenda. "Among the books destroyed were works by author Gay Talese and those concerning the Enola Gay, the famous World War II warplane, as well as romance novels and books on women's health."
The International Association of Altered Book Artists has an essay by one of the artists, Aileen Roberts, along with many more pictures from the exhibit of over 200 works. Links to several more pages about the exhibit can be found here.
In light of the past few days' news, specifically these one, two, three stories which should be followed in conjunction with each other, I'd like to repost the following piece. It was my 5th apostrophization ever.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a good map is worth a million. Let's go to Palestine.
The UN has, all of a sudden, become central to Bush's Iraq plan. How long do you think it will be before the right-wing hacks start blaming the security and political problems there on the UN? Probably sometime between June 30 and election day.
But therein lies the problem; from a piece by Salim Lone, director of communications for the UN mission in Iraq headed by the late Sergio Vieira de Mello last year, in the Globe and Mail:
A recent Pew Research Center poll showed that the UN image has fallen to abysmally low levels in the Arab and Muslim worlds, and that it is vital that the organization correct its excessive U.S. tilt. It will only be able to do that if the United States itself recognizes that it cannot seek legitimacy from a UN undermined by the excessive U.S. pressure routinely placed on the Secretary-General and the institution itself. (emphasis mine)
Ending the Iraqi occupation is an essential first step to creating a stable and more secure world. No one would benefit more from such stability than the world's sole superpower.
At the moment, U.S. policy is built on needless confrontations - with Muslims in particular - which isolate it and expose it and its allies to real danger. Worldwide, the vast majority of Muslims are backing the Iraqi insurgency, in part because they feel that a U.S. defeat in Iraq would prevent the United States from attacking and occupying other Muslim countries. However, these same Muslims would warmly welcome an honourable U.S. exit from Iraq. The United States needs to reach out in a dramatic way to aggrieved Muslims; only the building of a positive relationship will undermine the roots of terrorism and build support for joint action against it.
A rock in Mars' Meridiani Planum shares a mineral "fingerprint" not with other Mars rocks that probes have seen, but with a meteorite that smashed into Antarctica millennia ago...
Yes, that meteorite:
In the past, this meteorite convinced some scientists that it held organic compounds, indicative of life on Mars. Other scientists say the evidence has earthly origins. The space rock also held pockets of gases that resembled the Martian atmosphere.
So, who's sending life to whom? Well, we're sowing the seeds of confusion for future investigators on Mars already.
It's despicable. It's nauseating. It's desperate. And please, please, please try to make a campaign issue about it.
John F. Kerry's tour of duty in Vietnam, distinguished by Silver and Bronze stars and the close-range killing of an enemy fighter, is highlighted in his campaign ads and cheered on the trail. Even the campaign of President Bush, who did not see combat, hasn't tried to make an issue of his opponent's service record.
But as the presidential campaign heats up, some Vietnam veterans are using the Internet and talk radio to question the Democratic candidate's military record. They complain that Kerry's three Purple Hearts were for minor wounds and that he left Vietnam more than six months ahead of schedule under regulations permitting thrice-wounded soldiers to depart early.
Lt. Cmdr. Hibbard's critical account account of Kerry's first Purple Heart is dutifully sliced, diced and sauteed in this Salon article. Watch the advertisement and read the whole thing.
So two reasons I'm supposed to mistrust John Kerry are that his wounds weren't as life-threatening as they could have been and he went stateside after being wounded three times, as he was allowed to do?
Bring it on. Every time I think scoundrels like this have sunk as low as possible, they surprise me yet again.
Michael Crowley has an interesting dissection of the seven factions struggling for control of the Kerry campaign.
If John Kerry wants to govern America, he first must govern his own campaign. So far that hasn't been easy. If Bush's campaign is North Korea—totalitarian and monomaniacal, utterly devoted to its Supreme Leader—then Kerry's is Afghanistan—a chaotic battlefield of multiple feuding tribes. Kerry is the Hamid Karzai of his campaign, trying—so far futilely—to unite his disparate factions. Which tribe gains the upper hand will determine the style of Kerry's campaign, the issues he addresses, and even his presidential priorities if elected.
The factions Crowley identifies are the Kennedy Militia, the Boston Fixers, the D.C. fixers, the Kerry Clan, the Clintonites, the Kerry Loyalists, and the Band of Brothers.
From the Readings section of Harper's Magazine that arrived in my mail box today (ergo, no link to be given):
Negative Capability
The following assertions were collected from public statements made by George W. Bush and his official spokesmen since 1997.
The President of the United States is not a fact-checker.
I'm not a statistician.
I'm not a numbers-cruncher.
I'm not one of these bean counters.
I'm not very analytical.
I'm not a precision guy.
The President is not a micromanager.
I'm not a member of the legislative branch.
The President is not a rubber stamp for Congress.
I'm not a censor-guy.
I'm not a lawyer.
I'm not a doctor.
The President is not an economist.
I'm not a stockbroker or a stock-picker.
I'm not a forecaster.
I'm not a predictor.
I'm not a pollster, a poll-reader guy.
I'm not a very good prognosticator of elections.
I'm not a committee chairman.
I'm not of the Washington scene.
I'm not a lonely person.
I'm not a poet.
I'm not a very good novelist.
I'm not a textbook player.
I'm not an emailer.
I'm not a very long-winded person.
I'm not a very formal guy.
I am not a revengeful person.
I'm not an Iraqi citizen.
I'm not a divider.
I am not a unilateralist.
I'm not a tree, I'm a Bush.
Right-o. From the same source, here's a story that I can't believe escaped my attention back in November.
The following ballot measure was passed 314 to 152 in November by the voters of Bolinas, California. The measure was introduced by Jane Blethen, also called Dakar, a local woman who frequently dresses in burlap and paints her face with chocolate.
Vote for Bolinas to be a socially acknowledged nature-loving town because to like to drink the water out of the lakes to like to eat the blueberries to like the bears is not hatred to hotels and motor boats. Dakar. Temporary and way to save life, skunks, and foxes (airplanes to go over the ocean) and to make it beautiful.
Look, I realize this is nowhere near the crux, but it's still about biscuits. Granted, they are those odd British biscuits, but biscuits all the same.
An artist who was sacked by a biscuit company took revenge by adding sex scenes to their famous tins. Huntley & Palmer, which created Ginger Nuts, failed to spot the "extras" in its genteel garden party design, says The Sun. Tens of thousands were sold before a grocer noticed a couple romping in the bushes, two dogs locked together and a jam jar with the word s*** on it.
I'm not entirely certain, but I think that *** means "hit" in Jolly Old England. The "Huntley & Palmer" link above takes you to more information about their biscuit tins than you ever dreamed existed. Alternatively, nicecupofteaandasitdown.com has the Biscuit of the Week review, complete with full archives. This week's biscuit is the Afghan, and in the reader comments there I learned that Australia has feral camels.
Oh yeah, as long as I'm slinging non sequiturs with reckless abandon, Ford Motor Company has discovered that decapitated cats sliding down windshields make for lousy car commercials. Video here. (via cruel.com)
This morning, Ogged linked to the latest blog game:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the sentence on your blog along with these instructions.
Okay. I did this before I left for work this morning, and the nearest book at that moment was Gore Vidal's United States: Essays 1952-1992.
"We have embarked upon empire (Rome born again our heavy fate) without a Virgil in the crew, only tarnished silver writers in a bright uranium age, perfunctorily divided by editorialists between the 'affirmative' (and good) and the 'negative' (and bad)."
Hmm.
What is it about Hillary Clinton that sends the right wingers so completely around the bend? For two years now, they have trotted out theory after theory of how she will stage a Pennsylvania Avenue coup d'etat. Not whether she will, but how. Seems Rush Limbaugh has a new one now: she's going to have John Kerry whacked. From Limbaugh's radio show yesterday:
Hillary wants to be on the VP ticket so that she dispels the notion that the Clintons are sabotaging the campaign and so that she can also go out there and really be the star. She'd be the star because she'll be the one bringing excitement to it. And, by the way, she'll get all kinds of criticism and the Republicans will launch all they've got at her, and she'll endure that. They know that they're pretty confident Kerry is going to lose and if Kerry wins there's always Fort Marcy Park.
Fort Marcy Park is where Vince Foster's body was found, after Hillary had him murdered to cover up the affair the two of them were having, despite the fact that she's a lesbian. Or so the lunatic fringe would have you believe, anyhow. This is all so much nonsense, of course. She hardly needs to go ordering anybody's murder when she can just use her alien mind control ray that they stole from the White House when they were moving out. Or if that's too dicey, she could unleash the Shi'ite militia that she commands.
Really, the possibilities are endless. Try thinking outside the box, Rush.
From Tuesday's press conference:
Q: After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?
GWB: I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it.
I'll bet, since when he goes off script, any damn thing is likely to come out of his mouth.
Bush, long known for his grammatical conundrums and confusing phraseology, told reporters twice during Tuesday's prime-time news conference that 50 tons of mustard gas were discovered at a turkey farm in Libya. On the second occasion, he was responding to a reporter who asked him to identify the biggest mistake he had made since the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people and prompted the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
He could not. But as he searched for an answer, the Republican president reaffirmed his decision to invade Iraq and said weapons of mass destruction may still lie hidden there. "They could still be there. They could be hidden, like the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm," said Bush, referring to Libya's voluntary disclosure of weapons in March.
The next day, the White House said the accurate figure for the Libyan mustard gas was 23.6 metric tons, or 26 short tons, not 50 tons. Moreover, the substance was found at different locations across Libya, not at a turkey farm. And observers did not find mustard gas on the farm at all, but rather unfilled chemical munitions, the White House acknowledged.
Emphasis added. In other words, they found some amount of chemical weapons at this turkey farm, except none contained any . . . chemicals. This sure sounds familiar.
I don't like the guy either. Like Kos (admittedly, during the 1980s I was an obnoxious college student protesting our little adventures in Central America from a very safe location very distant from Central America... so quite UNlike Kos, but...) I'm outraged by John Negroponte.
But I have to disagree with him and Matt Yglesias. And a whole bunch of others, so-it-seems. The Negroponte fight is not worth fighting. Or rather, it's an un- if not counterproductive fight to wage. Let me explain:
1. Somebody's going to get appointed. The Neocons are freshly invigorated by their stunning - even to themselves - success this afternoon in removing the slightest pretense of American opposition to further Israeli settlement of Palestinian land. They're in a position to vet any potential candidate and the short list for appointment as US ambassador to Iraq coming out of this administration is not likely to include anybody particularly better than John Negroponte. There's no shortage of these scoundrels from which to choose.
2. Swing voters (and even huge swaths of loyal Democrats) don't know John Negroponte. Even more don't outside his role as UN Ambassador and hardly any remember much about Nicaragua, let alone Honduras.
3. A big fight over this still-to-be-made appointment would not result in anything other than the perception that the opposition in this country just wants Iraq to fail so that Bush looks bad.
4. If we can keep our eye on the ball and replace the leadership of the foreign policy team, those new leaders can appoint new ambassadors in 2005.
I recognize that Negroponte has blood all over his hands. I recognize that we all really want to see an improving situation in Iraq, regardless of who gets to score political points for it. I even recognize that John Negroponte is highly unlikely to contribute to Democracy in Iraq. But we need to pick our battles carefully and this one just has deleterious written all over it.
Then for God's sake don't leave the house!
Prosecutors on Sunday charged a Kansas City, Kan., man with killing a woman early Easter morning at a convenience store -- because she was wearing blue -- and fatally shooting another woman through the front door of her home...
Police said a witness told them Clemons shot at another woman, also because she was wearing blue, but they did not know if she had been hit.
What do you get when you wear something borrowed?
Tell me something I didn't know.
Young female chimps are faster and better learners than young male chimps, suggests a new study, echoing learning differences seen in human girls and boys.
While young male chimps pass their time playing, young female chimps carefully study their mothers. As a result, they learn how to fish for tasty termite snacks over two years before the boys.
Mmmmm. Tasty termite snacks.
If you need an ambassador who can buddy-up with some absolutely lovely locals and really antagonize the neighbors, John Negroponte is just your man.
That said, at least he's been working "in", if not "with" too much, the UN for the last three years. So I suppose there are plenty of worse appointments Bush could make.
I forced myself to sit through the WarriorGodKing's little Q&A last night and figured I'd add a few thoughts this morning to the general digital digestion of it.
1. He is horribly embarrassed about needing Cheney to hold his hand in the 9-11 interview. And all his supporters should be as well. Pound this point and pound it hard. I'm going to visit comment boards today.
2. The "spreading" of the "freedom" of the "Almighty" shtick betrays utter ignorance of what he's doing in Iraq.
3. I know he's not likely to read Apostropher, but twice in the last week I've recommended some humility, if not an apology. Some acceptance of some responsibility - not acceptance of guilt - for what happened and didn't happen leading up to 9/11 would be very timely and probably quite helpful politically. Plus the Country needs it. Given several opportunities for it last night he failed to. This conceited attitude coupled with a propensity to blame everyone else for anything that goes wrong - typical spoiled, rich kid behavior I've been noticing all my life - is part of what makes my skin crawl about this loser.
4. They got a little more spunk in them last night, but generally I've given up on the WH press corps asking truly probing questions. They just won't do it.
5. The subject changed so many times last night that Osama, Saddam, action, freedom, America!
6. Juan Cole on Fresh Air was far more interesting.
I'm (somewhat) looking forward to the next one, say, in August?
Last summer, I linked to a no longer existing Reuters story about a Dutch woman whose face and neck were burned when her Nokia cell phone burst into flames. Soon after, the incident replayed itself a few other times, then seemed to fade away. Well, the al-Qallya sleeper cells have struck again, this time in Hong Kong, martyring themselves for the greater glory of M'Allah Bell.
When Chan Tin-hon's mobile phone went off, it went off with a bang. "I was lining up in a bank," the 22-year-old from Hong Kong told local Cable TV. "When I hung up the phone, it exploded. It was very loud." The station showed Chan's phone, a Nokia 3310, in tatters and a spokeswoman for the manufacturer said they would investigate.
Shouldn't have chosen "For Those About to Rock" as your ringtone, chum.
In best Luddite fashion, I have stubbornly clung to my refusal to carry one of these infernal contraptions. I don't like phones in general, am put out every time my land line rings, and don't enjoy feeling like I'm on call 24/7. Call it crazy, but that's my neurosis and I'm sticking to it. I also suspect that's how They™ track you. I have to admit, however, that if you have ever been standing behind me in line, jabbering away into one of those things, I've been secretly wishing it would explode.
Yes, I have.
From Clarksville, TN's Leaf Chronicle: "Family members say that the honoree has always been called 'Monkey' by her siblings and 'Aunt Monkey' by her nieces and nephews."
Analysts have been tearing this thing apart for the last few days and as best I can reckon the consensus on the left is: while there's no BIG surprise here - Bush misunderestimated the threat from Al Qaeda - here's a document that spells that out and the date on it is really embarrassing.
But I think we all can agree that just about everyone misunderestimated the threat from Al Qaeda. Just about everyone, that is, except Richard Clarke. Simply by the fact that the attacks happened, our Government didn't do enough to stop them. At the last minute, citizens managed to stop one.
But the response from the right has been baffling: "Don't you know we're at war? The Warrior-God-King must maintain an aura of infallibility!" With all these logical contortions somebody's bound to pull a muscle. When it's pointed out that the Bush security team didn't see this one coming, they respond as if he'd been accused of masterminding it.
Can't wait to hear the response to the memo dated August 7 that apparently filtered out the bin-Laden related components from a day earlier.
Maybe if the adults had held on to the executive branch 9-11 could've been prevented - Clinton's anti-terror team did manage to scuttle a few plots in the 1990's. Maybe, but probably not. Either way, the victims' families would like to hear an apology.
Bush was vacationing during August 2001 and his security team was obsessing over Star Wars. Just the slightest bit of humility is appropriate. Clinton apologized for denying a blowjob.
Update: A little reminder from February 2002.
Work is busy busy busy. Life is busy busy busy. And it looks to get worse before it gets better.
Jim Henley: Late Night Thoughts of a Defeatist. What he said.
We're building a paved road to the South Pole.
"This suspect had a perception that policemen are lazy, that is why he decided to conceal the firearm in a bucket full of fat."
illiterate nazi teen girl diary!!!!! she loves hitler AND james barron!!!!!!!!! (However, she does want to inform all of us that she is "done with don the vampire.")
You have been warned: don't steal an alligator named Mr. Cranky Pants. Apparently he's something of a pisser.
Clinton impeachment ringleader Bob Barr is trying to sue James Carville, Larry Flynt, and Bill Clinton for allegedly conspiring to "smear him by publishing embarrassing information about his private life." This is the world's tiniest violin, Bob, playing just for you.
The world's least dense solid, being used by NASA to capture comet particles and interstellar dust, is 99.8% air and a thousand times less dense than glass. "Aerogel is not like conventional foams, but is a special porous material [...] composed of individual features only a few nanometers in size [...] linked in a highly porous dendritic-like structure." If you press it with your finger, it will dimple, but press too hard and it shatters catastrophically.
Cut her some slack; sometimes I get distracted when I'm in the bathroom, too.
A federal air marshal walked into a stall in a public restroom Thursday at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport and walked out a little lighter. She left her gun on a shelf. Fortunately, a scrupulous traveler found the semiautomatic handgun minutes later and immediately contacted a Continental Airlines worker, who took the gun and turned it over to police.
I hope she remembered to wash her hands. Airports are havens for dangerous germs.
Perfect day for it yesterday. Seasonable for mid-April in the subtropics but overcast enough to stay what I’d call “cool” from dawn to sunset. Fishing wasn’t originally on the agenda for the Sunday outing. But Froz-the-smaller has gotten so good at casting off our deck with his junior-sized rod & reel (bobbin and one 30-lead; no hook) into the yard I knew he was controlled enough to be safe with the real deal. Since the afternoon hours were cool and overcast, mimicking morning and dusk, I figured it’d be worth a try. So we hiked, Mama & Papa, child and dog, down to Morgan Creek.
Spring in North Carolina outdoes herself every year. There’s a penetrating hue in that peculiar bright, pale green that is evident at no other time and in no other place than the southeastern woodlands in April. Reliably the Dogwoods are in full bloom. The Redbud flowers are denser this year than I ever recall. But it’s the less stunning specimens that catch my attention. All manner of species, from the single leaf of the Wild Orchid hiding its purple underside to the intricately scaled, unfolding buds on the Beech trees, commence their metamorphosis. Somewhat like the development of a fetus reflects the evolution of animal form throughout the ages, plant life’s changing structures in Spring’s unfolding provides an annual reminder of the pulse of the eons.
Appreciating all this complexity and connecting with natural forces provides the opportunity to recharge the batteries and enable a person to more confidently and competently deal with whatever trials may come their way. And fishing doesn’t pit you against nature, it consummates your relationship to it. This is why, admittedly, I had to sympathize with Dear Leader yesterday. I know how frustrating it can be when a fishing trip – I repeat: not just a walk in the woods but a fishing trip - is scuttled by some such or another.
So in recognition of the sacrifice Junior had to make, let’s just say my boy and I went fishing for him.
Transversely and doubly impaling the earthworms on the hook – the very ones he’s been taught to tend protectively when turning the compost pile – inspired the right question: “Why do we do that to the earthworm?” The answer: “because we want the fish to try to eat it but get caught on the hook instead; and having a little desperate wiggle still in them helps” seemed to make perfect sense to him.
Damn! For four years old that boy can cast. I should note that he explained to a neighbor twice his age last week (who was flailing about trying to throw the rod like a baseball at one of our deck practice sessions) that he should “use finesse, not force.” He ultimately adapted – with a few caution calls - and exhibited as much confidence with hook and live bait as he did wading out onto the rocks in the middle of the creek. Confidence… However, not competence.
The thoroughly wet socks and pants shortened his already mismatched attention span. After a few admirably pretty casts, the thought of running about on shore was just more interesting; then it was just Froz out there working this extremely worn out – I kid you not – Mickey Mouse rod and reel.
I made one last cast on the tired line. The reel had been straining on the last few draws and now it was hopelessly stuck. I opened the casing around it and saw that the tangle, which had previously been mild and suppressed far back down the spool, had grown utterly intractable. Then the gear came out from its assembly. Time to go home.
With probably 30 feet of line to collect, I started gathering it in by hand as if it was a rope. The current was tugging on it pretty hard, though. Then it was swishing back and forth from one side of the creek to the other. I called the Little Man over.
It was just a Sucker, a small relative of the Carp, about 7 inches long and 4 inches tall. But for a four year old who’s been fascinated by fishing for several weeks it was a moment of revelation. Pulling the hook out of its mouth, feeling the scales and fins, looking inside the gills, touching the teeth, all these were captivating. He asked if we should eat it and I said “we could, but since he’s so small we should probably let him go. He wouldn’t be more than a snack.” We let him go so he could tell all his fish friends about his experience.
Mr. President, I understand you’re a Christian and that this season represents new beginnings of sorts to y’all. With that in mind I hope you stumble across the kind of blind, dumb luck that can somehow redeem a hopelessly tangled situation. I think you’ll need it. Furthermore, I hope you discover the wisdom that sometimes it’s best to carefully let go of preconceived grand schemes, try to learn a few lessons from your experience, and just hope you haven’t done too much damage.
Want any other evidence that there's very little fact-checking going on over at the NRO?
President Roosevelt waited until after World War II to put in place a commission to investigate what mistakes led to Pearl Harbor. That was a wise move, but then Roosevelt did not face the kind of hyper-partisanship that plagues America these days. (Washington Post columnist David Broder recently pointed out that when FDR ran for reelection during World War II, he emphasized his record as a war leader. Broder might have added that FDR's Republican opponent, Thomas Dewey, declined to criticize the president in regard to foreign policy during a time of war. It's almost hard to believe that there was a time when Americans knew the difference between their foreign enemies and their political adversaries.)
Now a little googling can quickly dispense with the actual date of the Pearl Harbor Commission creation (December 18, 1941) and Dewey's supposed deference to FDR.
But read the first sentence of that paragraph again and tell me what else is wrong with it...
Tips to Roger Ailes
We're cutting prices so low, you'll think we're insane!
A group of Russian space experts on Friday announced an ambitious plan to send a six-man crew to Mars within a decade, a project it said would cost only $3.5 billion. Russian space officials dismissed the project as nonsense. A researcher at the Central Research Institute for Machine-Building, Russia's premier authority on space equipment design, said it would carry out the project with funding promised by Aerospace Systems, a little-known private Russian company that says it draws no resources from the state budget.
The program envisions six people traveling to Mars and exploring it for several months before returning to Earth. The expedition is designed to last three years in all, and would depend on a fully equipped spacecraft containing its own garden, medical facilities and other amenities. Georgy Uspensky, a department head at the institute, said that the comparatively small budget for the program reflected plans to use already existing spacecraft.
[...]
"Both U.S. and Russian experts have estimated that the Mars project costs around a trillion dollars. How can they launch this with so little money?" Gorbunov said. Alexandrov didn't explain how his firm would raise the funds, but said one of the reasons he thought such a mission would be profitable was it could involve a "reality" television show.
Real World Meridiani Planum.
I know I shouldn't. But David Brooks' head appears to be lost up his...
... Pundits and sages were spinning a whole series of mutually exclusive disaster scenarios: Civil war! A nationwide rebellion!
Leaving aside the "mutually exclusive" inanity, both? Maybe the latter foreshadowing the former?
It's a battle against people who vehemently oppose a democratic Iraq
Or possibly that democracy birthed by force out of Iraq 2003 (with few civil institutions within which to manifest itself, for starters) looks rather like a blend of anarchy and theocracy.
(Sadr) and his band have taken this opportunity to make a desperate bid for power
Again with the "desperate" enemy shtick. Keep pretending.
(Iraqis) continually overestimate our competence, then invent conspiracy theories to explain why we haven't transformed Iraq
You don't have to shoot too high to "overestimate the competence" residing in our war planners' minds these days, so I'll give the benefit of the doubt to this analysis. So what qualifies as "transformation" with which they might not be happy?
Now for the only thing he says that comes close to accuracy:
Sadr's domestic opponents are ill-equipped to deal with him. The police have revealed their weakness. Normal Iraqis are doing what they learned to do under Saddam; they are keeping their heads down. Clerics like Sistani, who operate by consensus, do not want to be seen siding with outsiders against a fellow Muslim.
Except that quite a few (define normal for me) Iraqis aren't just keeping their heads down any more.
In a February poll, only 10 percent of Iraqis said it was acceptable to attack Americans.
Read the third sentence of the paragraph quoted previously.
...yesterday's defections from the Iraqi Governing Council show that populist pressure on the good guys is getting intense
This is not a John Wayne movie; there's not a hat in Mesopotamia either white or black right now. The only generalization you can make is that the current situation makes all manner of people do things they wouldn't otherwise do; all the hats are turning darker shades of grey.
I'll correct myself. Mr. Brooks does catch a second accurate glimpse outside his blinders: "If people like Sistani are forced to declare war on the U.S., the gates of hell will open up."
One of Bush's "rivals" for the Republican presidential nomination is Manchester, New Hampshire's Robert Edwards Haines, who also ran in 1992 and 1996 (picture here). He had 15 minutes of fame in 1994 when, while campaigning in DC, he tackled a gunman that opened fire on the White House. The link on his name above goes to a 2003 interview by the Dartmouth Review that may give you a hint to his worldview beyond the standard pro-gun, anti-tax rhetoric.
TDR: What are some of these moral issues?
RH: Well the infiltration of the Church's body by the Dark Side okay? This is not by coincidence that all these things are happening. This is a deliberate attempt by the Dark Side to infiltrate the church. [They're] organizing a deliberate attempt for them to take over churches and to take over seminaries, and use children and so on and so forth. This is not a coincidental thing; it's an organized thing, an organized cover-up, etc., etc. It's all organized.
TDR: What is the "Dark Side"?
RH: People working for Satan himself. Yes, the Dark Side, they are working for Satan. These people are not worshipping God, the most High, the most Almighty, or Jesus Christ. They are doing the work of the Devil--Satan himself.
My goodness. Well, I suppose somebody has to stand up to the roaming clandestine armies of Satan. Mr. Haines, though, might not be the ideal candidate to confront them since he seems to have a touch of the devil in him, too.
Haines [...] is being held at Rappahannock Regional Jail after telling a police officer that he would "kick his ass and cut off his dog's head," police spokesman Jim Shelhorse said.
For two weeks, Haines had been passing out fliers here declaring his presidential bid. Police have escorted him away from several places after people complained he was bothering them, Shelhorse said. Last week, he was arrested on a public drunkenness charge, Shelhorse said. On Wednesday, Haines was grabbing women as they walked by and inviting them to a private, female-only meeting, police said.
Officer Brian Bettis told Haines that his car had been parked for four hours in two-hour parking, and he was going to get a ticket, Shelhorse said. That is when he threatened Bettis and his police dog. Haines took off his coat and cowboy hat and put his fists up, Shelhorse said, which prompted police to spray him with pepper spray before he surrendered.
I'm torn. Of the preceding three paragraphs, which one has the closing sentence that paints the funniest mental picture?
And I thought I was being oh, so clever. Ten weeks ago, after the Mars Rover Spirit emerged from its coma caused by some sort of interplanetary case of the hiccoughs, I welcomed the little fella back by showing off the lego namesake that Froz-the-smaller-but-not-necessarily-lesser and I built. We were so proud. I contemplated contacting Lego Integalactic, Inc. and offering the idea, if not the design for no small fee.
I have waited too long; Lego's New Product Development team apparently includes at least one Apostropher reader.
I'm not sure how I've managed to only find it now, but Fafnir, Giblets, and the Medium Lobster over at Fafblog! are some funny, funny fellows. On the Easter Bunny scourging from a few days back:
Giblets thinks flogging the Easter Bunny is a great idea. It'll get some "old school" religion into kids which is what I am told we need more of these days, especially to Combat the Decay of the West. It might not make the fluffy light-entertainment "oh-we-like-the-Easter-Bunny" people happy. But it will remind all of us of the brutal and terrible sacrifice the Easter Bunny made when he suffered and died for our sins, which so many Americans take for granted these days.
The masses have spoken. Blogrolled shall the Fafblog! be. Crucify Barrabus.
Today is the one year anniversary of Baghdad falling to American troops and, frankly, Iraqis don't much seem in the celebrating mood. I'm sure you recall the months following last April when chanting "WMD WMD WMD" became, well, problematic, and the Bush Leaguers switched to a new mantra, "Mass graves mass graves mass graves." Now that Iraqis in Fallujah are having to resort to mass graves just to get their dead in the ground, I guess we'll be hearing a new chant shortly. From today's entry from Riverbend at Baghdad Burning:
Today, the day the Iraqi Puppets hail "National Day", will mark the day of the "Falloojeh Massacre"… Bremer has called for a truce and ceasefire in Falloojeh very recently and claimed that the bombing will stop, but the bombing continues as I write this. Over 300 are dead in Falloojeh and they have taken to burying the dead in the town football field because they aren't allowed near the cemetery. The bodies are decomposing in the heat and the people are struggling to bury them as quickly as they arrive. The football field that once supported running, youthful feet and cheering fans has turned into a mass grave holding men, women and children.
The people in Falloojeh have been trying to get the women and children out of the town for the last 48 hours but all the roads out of the city are closed by the Americans and refugees are being shot at and bombed on a regular basis… we're watching the television and crying. The hospital is overflowing with victims… those who have lost arms and legs… those who have lost loved ones. There isn't enough medicine or bandages… what are the Americans doing?! This is collective punishment … is this the solution to the chaos we're living in? Is this the 'hearts and minds' part of the campaign?
[...]
The American and European news stations don't show the dying Iraqis… they don't show the women and children bandaged and bleeding- the mother looking for some sign of her son in the middle of a puddle of blood and dismembered arms and legs… they don't show you the hospitals overflowing with the dead and dying because they don't want to hurt American feelings… but people *should* see it. You should see the price of your war and occupation- it's unfair that the Americans are fighting a war thousands of kilometers from home. They get their dead in neat, tidy caskets draped with a flag and we have to gather and scrape our dead off of the floors and hope the American shrapnel and bullets left enough to make a definite identification…
One year later, and Bush has achieved what he wanted- this day will go down in history and in the memory of all Iraqis as one of the bloodiest days ever...
Remember that the seige of Fallujah started over the deaths of four Americans. Four. The latest reports out of the city have over 400 Iraqis killed and over a thousand wounded. One Interim Governing Council member has resigned in protest and another has threatened to do so. How many people are we going to kill before we admit that we cannot "win" this war or, for that matter, even define what winning would be at this point?
"Numbers have dehumanized us. Over breakfast coffee we read of 40,000 American dead in Vietnam. Instead of vomiting, we reach for the toast. Our morning rush through crowded streets is not to cry murder but to hit that trough before somebody else gobbles our share."
- Dalton Trumbo, Johnny Got His Gun, 1970.
Substitute ten (eleven? twelve? Nobody even bothers to count...) thousand Iraqis for 40 thousand Americans and look how little we have changed in three and a half decades. Still willing to sacrifice tens of thousands of human beings to get a barely noticeable income tax cut and bathe in some false national self-image of machismo. I'm off the fence now: we should re-instate the draft with no exemptions. None. For anybody.
We'd be out of Iraq within the month.
Y'know, maybe the Kibbles 'n Lard cat food ain't workin' out for Fluffy.
A German cat weighing six times the normal weight is so fat that it cannot take more than four steps without getting exhausted. Now officials at a Berlin animal shelter are having trouble finding a new owner for six-year-old Mikesch, after it was taken away from his elderly owner. The man, who was himself taken to a nursing home, had been feeding the 18.5 kilo cat two kilos of mince each day. [...] Cats usually weigh between 3-6kg and should eat no more than about 300 grams of food each day, vets say.
Guinness no longer keeps records for fattest cats, but the now-permanent recordholder was an 18.55 kg cat from Minnesota named O.T. So close, so close...
No reason not to be polite about it.
An apologetic Peeping Tom in northern Arkansas left a $20 bill and a note for his victim asking if she would not mind if he peered at her outside her window, police said on Friday. The note and the cash were found on Monday night at an apartment complex in Mountain Home, Arkansas. Police said the writer of the letter apologized for looking into the window.
At MIT's Technology Review, David Appell (whose Quark Soup science blog has been on hiatus since February) interviews Aubrey de Grey, a theoretical biologist at Cambridge University who believes that by 2025, lifespans for humans being born then will be between 1000 and 5000 years. Doctor de Grey says he is used to having his theory dismissed as outlandish, but I'm hesitant to cast any doubts toward a fellow with a beard like that.
What is it about The Passion of the Christ that sends people so completely around the bend? First, there's the elementary school teacher in DC who felt that extended scenes of realistic torture and execution would be appropriate to show his students, prompting the school to offer counseling to some badly shaken kids. And now, Ezra and Jesse spot a story that I can only surmise is a clever kickback scheme for child psychologists.
A church trying to teach about the crucifixion of Jesus performed an Easter show with actors whipping the Easter bunny and breaking eggs, upsetting several parents and young children. People who attended Saturday's performance at Glassport's [Pennsylvania] memorial stadium quoted performers as saying, "There is no Easter bunny," and described the show as being a demonstration of how Jesus was crucified.
Melissa Salzmann, who brought her 4-year-old son J.T., said the program was inappropriate for young children. "He was crying and asking me why the bunny was being whipped," Salzmann said. [...] Performers broke eggs meant for an Easter egg hunt and also portrayed a drunken man and a self-mutilating woman.
Hey, you've been a great crowd, thanks for coming. Be sure to catch our Christmas pageant where we'll be feeding Santa Claus to the lions and our special Bastille Day guest performance, when we'll be guillotining the Teletubbies. And remember kids: every time you touch yourself down there, God gives the Easter Bunny another forty lashes. Jesus loves you!
Viet Nam, Iraq circa 1920, the West Bank...
Kidnappers will kill three Japanese journalists they are holding in Iraq in three days unless Japanese forces withdraw from the country, Qatar's Al-Jazeera satellite news reported, showing video pictures of the hostages.
Odd... This wasn't happening before we invaded. Tell me again how this adventure has made the world a safer place.
And he wants the editor of Greenville, Mississippi's Delta Democrat Times to know it.
Editor:
I recently viewed the TV preview of "The Making of The Passion of the Christ." Then I saw the movie. Mel Gibson's presentation is excellent. God inspired this work and anyone who doesn't realize that doesn't understand the Bible.
[...]
What is the real reason for people's criticism? Blood and guts? With all the gore in today's movies, it can't be that. Jewish persecution? That has always existed.
Those are smoke screens. Understand that the media controls what we see and hear. They choose to give voice to the critics and skeptics. Almost every CEO and journalist is an unbeliever or minim (sic) Christian whose carnal lifestyle is centered in the darkness of this world (2 Corinthians 4:3-4). Without light, "they'' never be able to see what "The Passion" is really about. Just like their Roman and Jewish counterparts in the movie, they can only come against the truth.
This movie is a wake up call to us all (as if 9-11 wasn't enough).
Previous opinions:
Rick Santorum
Steve Verdon
Sanford Wagner
A U.S. helicopter fired three missiles at a mosque compound in the city of Fallujah on Wednesday, killing about 40 people as American forces battled Sunni insurgents, witnesses said. Cars ferried bodies from the scene, though there was no immediate confirmation of casualities. [...] The strike came as worshippers gathered for afternoon prayers, witnesses said. They said the dead were taken to private homes in the area where temporary hospitals have been set up.
Falloojeh has been cut off from the rest of Iraq for the last three days. It's terrible. They've been bombing it constantly and there are dozens dead. Yesterday they said that the only functioning hospital in the city was hit by the Americans and there's no where to take the wounded except a meager clinic that can hold up to 10 patients at a time. There are over a hundred wounded and dying and there's nowhere to bury the dead because the Americans control the area surrounding the only graveyard in Falloojeh; the bodies are beginning to decompose in the April heat. The troops won't let anyone out of Falloojeh and they won't let anyone into it either- the people are going to go hungry in a matter of days because most of the fresh produce is brought from outside of the city. We've been trying to call a friend who lives there for three days and we can't contact him.
So in response for the killing and mutilation of four "contractors" by a crowd of a few hundred, we have gone in and locked down a city of a quarter-million people, killing at a minimum dozens (including women and children), and allowing their bodies to rot on the side of the road while blocking access to the graveyard. However, they are fighting us because "they hate freedom," says our amoral halfwit in chief, who may now be topping his feat of driving France and Germany into an alliance by doing the same for Iraqi Sunnis and Shi'a. Against us, of course. He's a uniter, not a divider.
Almost exactly a year ago I wrote a post that contained this passage from a Uri Avnery op-ed:
On the fourth day of the 1982 Israeli attack on Lebanon, I crossed the border at a lonely spot near Metulla and looked for the front, which had already reached the outskirts of Sidon. I was driving my private car, accompanied by a woman photographer. We passed a dozen Shiite villages and were received everywhere with great joy. We extracted ourselves only with difficulty from hundreds of villagers, each one insisting that we have coffee at their home. On the previous days, they had showered the soldiers with rice.
A few months later I joined an army convoy going in the opposite direction, from Sidon to Metulla. The soldiers were now wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, many were on the verge of panic.
What had happened? The Shiites had received the Israeli soldiers as liberators. When they realized that they had come to stay as occupiers, they started to kill them.
When the Israeli troops entered Lebanon the Shiites were a down-trodden, powerless community, held in contempt by all the others. After a year of fighting the occupiers, they became a political and military power. The Shiite Hizbullah is the only military force in the Arab world that has beaten the mighty Israeli army.
Sharon is the real father of the Shiite force in Lebanon. Bush may well become the father of Shiite power in Iraq. The Shiites, 60% of the Iraqi population, have until now been down-trodden and powerless. When they realize that the Americans intend to stay, they will start a deadly guerilla campaign. Bush does not intend to leave Iraq, as Sharon did not intend to leave Lebanon.
Looks pretty damn prescient now, doesn't it? The piece ends with a quote from Thomas Jefferson: "Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just."
Today's Salon leads with a piece by Jen Banbury that doesn't bode well for our folks in Iraq.
Last week, before followers of Muqtada al-Sadr began actively fighting coalition forces, before four Americans working for a private security company were killed and mutilated in Fallujah, I left -- or perhaps I should say fled -- Iraq. In the week or so preceding my departure, I felt the country undergo an essential, albeit subtle, shift. The anger previously focused on soldiers and members of the Coalition Provisional Authority seemed to morph, almost daily, into an indiscriminate ire toward Westerners in general. Almost overnight, I stopped feeling safe.
[...]
But even before the current crisis, something may have happened to ordinary Iraqis that cannot be reversed. When I sensed the country's mood change before I left Iraq, I wasn't hanging out with Saddam loyalists or members of al-Sadr's militia. I was in Baghdad talking to average people.
It's a powerful and depressing article and I don't have much to add to it, except I thought it worth pointing out one of the odder details she mentions. Apparently, one of the largest "private military corporations" operating in Baghdad has the unfortunate name of Custer Battles. That's right, Custer Battles. As with last week's founding of a Baghdad chapter of the Optimists Club, you just couldn't make this stuff up.
"I know if you just report on those few places, it does look chaotic. But if you travel around the country, what you find is a bustling economy, people opening businesses right and left, unemployment has dropped." - Civilian Administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer, April 2004
"They are not in Baghdad. They are not in control of any airport. I tell you this. It is all a lie. They lie. It is a hollywood movie. You do not believe them." - Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, April 2003
Moqtada al-Sadr has consistently been portrayed as a "firebrand junior cleric" who represented only a minority of Iraqi Shi'ites, which was all true, as far as it went. However, that narrative might be in the process of dissolving.
U.S. troops supported by Bradley Fighting Vehicles and M-1 tanks surrounded Tuesday the office of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr while a large-scale demonstration of his heavily armed supporters is under way.
Sadr's militia, the Mehdi Army, has vowed to fight to protect the building. Its supporters have dispersed into the surrounding homes with weapons. United Press International has seen men with assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades in the neigborhood. The supporters waved signs of all major Shiite Clerics -- including Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the late Ayatollah Mohammed Hakim, Sadr's father, Mohammed Sadr, and the young cleric -- in a sign of unity rarerly seen as Sadr and Sistani are known not to get along.
About two hours into the standoff, despite the neighborhood being sealed off by U.S. troops, two Sunni clerics -- one from the Anbar province, which includes the towns of Ramadi and Fallujah, and another from Adamiyah -- arrived with a letter, which proclaimed support for Sadr's opposition to the U.S.-led occupation forces, signaling for the first time a public alliance between the previously Sunni and Baathist resistance and the Iraq's Shiite majority. It is the first time the Army of Mohammed has publicly announced support for Sadr. The letter called upon all Muslims to come together to throw out "infidel occupiers of Iraq."
By openly declaring him an outlaw and publicizing the arrest warrant, Bremer and the CPA have backed themselves into a corner where they cannot afford not to arrest him for fear of looking weak, but can't afford to arrest him for fear of really having this boil over. Sadr is reportedly in Najaf, where his supporters now are said to control the governor's office, police stations, and the Imam Ali mosque, one of Shia Muslim's holiest shrines. The safe money is on Sadr holing up in the Imam Ali shrine and daring the Americans to come "defile" it.
NASA is taking suggestions from aerospace companies on ways to service the Hubble Space Telescope using robots, in order to avoid its early demise. One of the capabilities that would be lost completely without Hubble is the ability to study ultraviolet light, because it is absorbed in Earth's atmosphere. Ground-based telescopes can and will continue to improve, but UV astronomy simply has to be done from space and it is vital.
Now an international consortium is proposing to construct the World Space Observatory, an orbiting, exclusively UV telescope five to ten times more powerful than Hubble.
The WSO is tentatively supported by 14 countries, with others interested in signing on, proponents say. The United States is not among the participants.
If launched, the telescope would involve an unprecedented cooperative effort extending to countries rarely noted for their space or astronomy programs. The observatory's "implementation committee" has representatives from 19 nations, including Germany, France, Italy, China, and smaller countries like Sweden, Norway, the Ukraine and the Baltic states. The United Nations is also participating, as is the multinational European Space Agency (ESA) on a limited advisory basis. The Russian Federal Space Agency recently took leadership of the project.
"The World Space Observatory is a completely new approach to carrying out space science, spreading the overall costs across a much larger number of countries than in the past," says Martin Barstow of the University of Leicester in the UK.
The home page for the project is here. They believe a 2007 launch is possible.
Over at Fear of Clowns, Erik notices perhaps the most richly ironic statement to roll off of Bush's tongue yet. From the White House press release:
"This is one person [Moqtada al Sadr] - this is a person, and followers, who are trying to say, we don't want democracy - as a matter of fact, we'll decide the course of democracy by the use of force. And that is the opposite of democracy."
Damn, but I hate it when people decide the course of democracy by the use of force. What kind of a jerk would do something like that?
I'm sorry I stabbed you in the head on national television. Will you marry me?
"I fell out of love with him for a couple of days afterwards, but I love him again now." She says she has no hard feelings about the mishap, despite it being the third time he had accidentally hit her.
I'm pretty sure there's a lame Bryan Adams song in here somewhere.
European immigrants spent the better part of the first 300 years of colonization of my neck of the woods stripping all the good topsoil off North Carolina and flushing it down the Tar, Neuse, and Cape Fear rivers by way of horribly unsustainable farming practices. What's left is this hard, red, packed clay that we gardeners curse and nurse gently back to life.
A very wise teacher of mine once told me that to be a good gardener I had to stop trying to grow delicious fruit. Somewhat baffled, I asked what exactly I should be trying to do. He explained that a good gardener grows good soil. Good soil grows healthy plants; healthy plants grow delicious fruit.
It's a gross oversimplification - I'm prone to those - but if I had to prioritize global environmental challenges and identify the two most critical endeavors where ignorance or delay are no longer options, they would be (1) reversal of the anthropogenic addition of carbon (in it's many forms) to the atmoshpere and (2) reinvigoration the soil microecosystems. I'm glad someone is working on just that.
In a novel approach to stalling global warming while reinvigorating nutrient-depleted farmland, chemists have found they can promote soil's natural ability to soak up greenhouse-gas carbon dioxide from the surrounding air.
Experiments led by Jim Amonette at the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., and reported today at the American Chemical Society national meeting, show that maintaining a proper alkalinity plus frequent wetting and drying cycles can coax soil to retain more carbon.
Air is forced through tubes containing soil samples treated with an enzyme and alkaline additive to measure their effect on carbon sequestration. The PNNL-led experiment will soon move from the lab to the field. "Globally, soils contain four times as much carbon as the atmosphere, and half of the soil carbon is in the form of organic matter," said Amonette, a PNNL senior research scientist. Until about 30 years ago, soil tillage released more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than burning of fossil fuels. Some agricultural soils have lost a third of their carbon from tillage.
Highly invasive remediation recipes give me caution. Humic polymers less easily degraded by microbes sounds on the one hand like a jump-start to rebuilding soil complexity. But on the other hand, soil lives exactly because microscopic organisms do the [nopunintended]dirty work[/nopunintended] of turning minerals to living matter. Tying up their food source in less easily degradable - read "consumable" - structures may prove counterproductive in the long term.
Always averse to environmental puritanism (one of these days I'll get around to a lengthy post about genetically engineered organisms sure to piss off both entrenched sides of the argument), I'll tip my hat to these guys and wish them well in their research. But I'll qualify that endorsement by forwarding an opinion that, much like with endeavor #1 above, conservation by way of changing present destructive - in this case farming - practices will give far more bang-for-the-buck rebuilding soils and their natural ability to absorb carbon.
Lunaville spots the Department of Defense's count of the Iraq wounded exhibiting an odd trend last week.
Monday, March 29:
Since the start of military operations, 2,992 U.S. service members have been injured as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. Non-hostile injured numbered 441.
Tuesday, March 30 (Google Cache):
Since the start of military operations, 2,998 U.S. service members have been injured as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. Non-hostile injured numbered 441.
Wednesday, March 31:
Since the start of military operations, 3,013 U.S. service members have been injured as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. Non-hostile injured numbered 444.
Thursday, April 1 (Google Cache):
Since the start of military operations, 3,022 U.S. service members have been injured as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department. Non-hostile injured numbered 444.
Friday April 2:
Since the start of military operations, 2,988 U.S. service members have been injured as a result of hostile action, according to the Defense Department's figures as of Friday.
Hmm...
A coup d'etat is taking place in Iraq a the moment. Al-Shu'la, Al-Hurria, Thawra (Sadr city), and Kadhimiya (all Shi'ite neighbourhoods in Baghdad) have been declared liberated from occupation. Looting has already started at some places downtown, a friend of mine just returned from Sadun street and he says Al-Mahdi militiamen are breaking stores and clinics open and also at Tahrir square just across the river from the Green Zone. News from other cities in the south indicate that Sadr followers (tens of thousands of them) have taken over IP stations and governorate buildings in Kufa, Nassiriya, Ammara, Kut, and Basrah. Al-Jazeera says that policemen in these cities have sided with the Shia insurgents, which doesn't come as a surprise to me since a large portion of the police forces in these areas were recruited from Shi'ite militias and we have talked about that ages ago. And it looks like this move has been planned a long time ago.
No one knows what is happening in the capital right now. Power has been cut off in my neighbourhood since the afternoon, and I can only hear helicopters, massive explosions, and continuous shooting nearby. The streets are empty, someone told us half an hour ago that Al-Mahdi are trying to take over our neighbourhood and are being met by resistance from Sunni hardliners. Doors are locked, and AK-47's are being loaded and put close by in case they are needed. The phone keeps ringing frantically. Baghdadis are horrified and everyone seems to have made up their mind to stay home tomorrow until the situation is clear.
(via Unfogged)
Well, not really, but I haven't decided whether this is more creepy or cool.
When the 40,000 subscribers to Reason, the monthly libertarian magazine, receive a copy of the June issue, they will see on the cover a satellite photo of a neighborhood - their own neighborhood. And their house will be graphically circled.
On one level, the project, sort of the ultimate in customized publishing, is unsurprising: of course a magazine knows where its subscribers live. But it is still a remarkable demonstration of the growing number of ways databases can be harnessed. Apart from the cover image, several advertisements are customized to reflect the recipient's particulars.
"I'd like to cancel my subscription, please."
"I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Dave."
...who needs an exit strategy?
The fighting erupted when five trucks of US soldiers and the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps (ICDC) tried to enter the district and were attacked by Sadr supporters, Amid said. Coming under fire, the ICDC, a paramilitary force trained by the Americans, turned on the US soldiers and started to shoot at them, according to Amid. The soldiers fled their vehicles and headed for cover and then began to battle both the Mehdi Army and the ICDC members, he said. Their vehicles were set ablaze.
(link tunnel: Unfair Witness via Billmon)
"We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." - Vice President Dick Cheney, March 16, 2003.
Your first stop for analysis of the uprising that appears to be erupting is, of course, Juan Cole.
The Coalition decision to provoke a fight with Muqtada al-Sadr's movement only three months before the Coalition Provisional Authority goes out of business has to be seen as a form of gross incompetence in governance. How did the CPA get to the point where it has turned even Iraqi Shiites, who were initially grateful for the removal of Saddam Hussein, against the United States? Where it risks fighting dual Sunni Arab and Shiite insurgencies simultaneously, at a time when US troops are rotating on a massive scale and hoping to downsize their forces in country? At a time when the Spanish, Thai and other contingents are already committed to leaving, and the UN is reluctant to get involved?
One answer is that the Pentagon prevented the State Department from running the CPA. State is the body with experience in international affairs and administration. The civilians in the Department of Defense only know how to blow things up. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith staffed the CPA with Neoconservatives, most of whom had no administrative experience, no Arabic, and no respect for Muslim culture (or knowledge about it). They actively excluded State Department Iraq hands like Tom Warrick. (Only recently have a few experienced State Department Arabists been allowed in to try to begin mopping up the mess.)
Shorter version: The Bush Administration's long-running and well-documented disdain for all things State (including, for example, diplomacy) is reaching its logical conclusion. If the Shi'a continue to openly confront the occupying troops and the inevitable backlash from our incursion into Sunni Fallujah begins, we are well and truly f*cked. We didn't have enough troops on the ground to provide security already, and that was with a relatively calm south. Steve Gilliard gives some perspective on the military implications of what happened in Sadr City.
So which battalion commander should be courtmartialed? Because the idea that US troops could go into freaking Sadr City and get out in one piece is delusional at best. Instead, 31 soldiers got lit up. Or a ratio of nearly one killed for three wounded. Which is a phenomenal rate for a small unit action. That means a company was decimated by Shia militia men.
How can I draw that conclusion? Let's say the average mech company has 120 rifles on any given day. High casualities would be 3 killed and seven wounded. Crippling casualities would be 5 killed and 12 wounded. So what do we have? Seven dead and 24 wounded. A bunch of barely trained militiamen shut down the better part of a batallion today.
A battalion? Well, yeah. Because once you start losing men, you hunker down. Things got so bad, they had to call in air support. When one company started to take casualities, the dustoffs had to reach them. That stops offensive action, especially when you're taking fire from everywhere, which is what had to have happened here.
As best as I can guess, these guys rolled up into Sadr City, observed from the minute they rolled out of their base, got trapped in the streets and it was Mogo 2. Remember 18 died in Mogodishu over 24 hours when heavily outnumbered. Seven died in what seems to be a few hours. Extrapolate the numbers and it is this, not the bridge at Fallujah, which is the second Mogodishu.
What I don't understand is the fact that anyone could order any sized US force into Sadr City. There are at least 2 million people there. If you have 5,000 men with guns, they will outnumber any US force which enters there. Ordering US forces there is no better than sending them to die.
People see all those tanks and Apaches and think US soldiers are invincible. They aren't. They are matched, man for man, by the Iraqis. Many Shia are combat veterans and can handle their weapons. By the standards of a guerilla force, the Iraqis are lavishly equipped. They have automatic weapons, RPG's, light machine guns, all with enough ammo and training.
Tanks and Humvees are nearly useless in the crowded streets of Sadr City. If they unload all their firepower, they will kill civilians by the bushel load. It's a man for man fight and the US got hurt today. And tomorrow will not be any better.
Temperatures in Baghdad will rise into the high 90s next week and tempers along with them.
More thwarting at the hands of the Bush Team.
I'll mention as an aside before picking up my main topic this afternoon that the Plame investigation seems to be expanding from "leak" to "coverup of leak". Not surprising.
Speaking of leaks and their coverups, however, file this one under "do as you're instructed, or else."
A government whistle-blower says the Bush administration covered up the reasons for a toxic coal slurry spill in Appalachia that ranks among the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history...
(Jack) Spadaro was until recently the head of the National Mine Health and Safety Academy and played a key role in investigating the spill, which was 25 times the size of the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.
"It polluted 100 miles of streams, killing everything in the streams, all the way to the Ohio River," says Spadaro of the October 2000 spill that affected West Virginia and Eastern Kentucky. "The Bush administration came in and the scope of our investigation was considerably shortened. I had never seen something so corrupt and lawless in my entire career...interference with a federal investigation of the most serious environmental disaster in the history of the Eastern United States."
So what's happened to Spadaro? You probably won't be surprised about that either. Salon has a chilling account of what's gone down. Go watch their 30 second advertisement and read the whole thing.
At least a few in congress are raising questions about the Spadaro vendetta.
And the Miners' Union is pretty PO'd about the whole thing, too. Massey Energy lawyers called the spill "an Act of God" to limit their liability and, of course, defer to the almighty.
The Final Four gets underway this weekend, which means that this UNC graduate once again gets to wallow in my unvarnished disdain for Duke basketball coach Hollerin' Mike Krzyzewski (what are these "sour grapes" of which you speak?). Go UConn, beat Dook. And to get you in the mood, here's the relevant Fark Photoshop contest. Funny funny funny.
Yesterday I linked to BruceR's analysis suggesting that the Fallujah attack was spurred by a warlord figure that holds the real power in that city, Godfather-style. This morning, Juan Cole posts that it increasingly appears to be a response by Islamists to the Israeli assassination of Sheik Ahmed Yassin in Gaza City. The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
A previously unknown group has claimed responsibility for the the gruesome killing of four US contractors in Fallujah, western Iraq. It said the action was in revenge for Israel's assassination of Hamas leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
"This is a gift from the people of Fallujah to the people of Palestine and the family of Sheik Ahmed Yassin who was assassinated by the criminal Zionists," said in the statement from the "Brigades of Martyr Ahmed Yassin".
"We advise the US forces to withdraw from Iraq and we advise the families of the American soldiers and the contractors not to come to Iraq," said the statement obtained by AFP.
Of course, anybody can claim responsibility for an action, and the two scenarios aren't necessarily mutually exclusive here. Either way, you'd hate to be part of the Coalition force scheduled to enter Fallujah right now. Kos also takes a look at the role of hired mercenaries in Iraq (let's call it like it is - former special ops performing security functions in a war zone aren't adequately described as "contractors"), including its illegality under international law.
The biggest symbolic sticking point in the modern world is probably the Dome of the Rock, AKA Temple Mount, in Jerusalem. For Muslims, it is the spot where Mohammed ascended into Heaven to receive the Koran. According to Jewish teachings, it's the spot where a temple must be built to bring the messiah and world peace. And some Christians are mighty keen on that as well, convinced it will mean Jesus, the Sequel. Unfortunately, you'd have to remove the mosque to build the temple and that zoning proposal is a little, shall we say, controversial.
Looks like an intractable problem. What to do?
He has two big ideas, two ways to engineer the apocalypse. The first: a hovering holographic temple. Hayutman wants to set up an array of high-powered, water-cooled lasers and fire them into a transparent cube suspended beneath a blimp. The ephemeral, flickering image, he says, would fulfill an ancient, widely revered Jewish prophecy that the temple will descend from the heavens as a manifestation of light. Hayutman hopes to finance the project with some of the proceeds from a $20 million patent-infringement suit he and his partners have filed against Palm.
The rest of that money would be poured into Hayutman's second idea for jump-starting the end-times: a virtual temple within a massively multiplayer online role-playing game. The goal is for thousands of people to join in its construction on the Web. Hayutman even wants to display progress reports in the floating hologram as a kind of apocalyptic scoreboard.
Whether it's a hologram or a cyberstructure, Hayutman believes that a techno temple does away with the need for a physical building. Under his scheme, Jews and Christians would get a biblically accurate temple without razing the Dome of the Rock. A description of his plans is on the floppy disk in his pocket, which he says he will give to me when we leave the Mount.
And get this: the Islamic Trust that runs and guards the Noble Sanctuary, as the entire complex is called, says, "We have heard of this man's projections of light, and we will allow it to happen here - when there is a peace settlement." Though to be fair, there doesn't seem to be much threat of that breaking out.
(via: fantastic planet)
Even being cognizant of today's date, I got completely suckered by Jim Henley. Satire doesn't come much subtler than that. Before the lightbulb turned on over my head, I sent him an email that began, "If this is an incredibly subtle April Fool's post, please pat me on my head and send me along gently..."
He was very polite about it.
However, BruceR at Flit has the one post about Fallujah that you should read, if you read nothing else on the topic.
The only conclusion is that this one had at least the tacit blessing, if not the foreknowledge, of the real Fallujah leadership.
So who are the leaders? Well, there's no evidence they're terrorists, or Baathists per se (surely they can't be so deluded as to feel fighting Americans now will bring back Saddam; they're not on any deck of playing cards, anyway). We know they're covert, low-profile, organized, violent, and apparently without conventional political aims. In a different context, this mindset would be typical of an organized crime family; in this context, it's probably better referred to as warlordism.
And that's basically what we've got here, it's safe to say. Behind the scenes, there is a shadowy figure, as yet unnamed, and apparently unreachable... the Warlord of Fallujah. What we're dealing with here is tribe-based local factionalism.
[...]
Yesterday's gruesome ambush was the warlord's message back: "I'm still here. I'm still in control. My price just went up."
Lots more and it's the most plausible explanation I have seen so far.
I have a very bad feeling about this.
U.S. commanders in Iraq are preparing to occupy Fallujah and carry out combat operations and civil affairs rebuilding missions to defeat resistance after four American guards were killed and their dismembered bodies burned and displayed by residents in the town yesterday.
"We will be back in Fallujah," Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt said today in Baghdad about the U.S. Marines who operate in the area, according to a transcript. "It will be at the time and the place of our choosing. We will hunt down the criminals. We will kill them or we will capture them. And we will pacify Fallujah."
Many military officers, especially within the special operations community, believe that the "show of force" raids in places like Fallujah have served only to infuriate segments of the Sunni population and broaden popular support for the insurgency. It didn't help matters back in November when the 82nd Airborne's Maj. Gen. Charles Swannack boasted that the Army's get-tough approach in central Iraq - which included airstrikes in Baghdad and encircling some villages with concertina wire - was akin to using "a sledgehammer to crush a walnut."
A very bad feeling, indeed.
Incidentally, the contractors worked for Blackwater Security Consulting, reportedly hired to provide security for food convoys, and based in Moyock, North Carolina. My first real girlfriend was from Moyock. Drive all the way to the coast, then go north all the way to the Virginia border. Slow down and don't blink. That's Moyock. Still no word on who the killed contractors were or whether they themselves were North Carolinians.
Today researchers announced their discovery of a 365-million-year-old fossil limb bone of an ancient tetrapod. Tetrapods, including humans, are four-limbed animals with backbones. The fossil was found during road construction that revealed an ancient streambed...
To understand how tetrapods evolved limbs from fins, Shubin said it helps to imagine the environment that these creatures lived in. "Think of a shallow stream choked with plants, not of an open sea," he said. "At some level, these shallow streams approach a more terrestrial environment in the ways that animals would move around."
According to Daeschler, such an environment would require fish to have limblike fins to propel themselves along the surface of shallow waters, hold their position in a current, or lift their head to the water's surface to gulp air.
Fascinating read. They found the fossil in rock being cut away for a highway project. Makes me glad that most States require archaeological surveys before major land disturbing projects commence.
File this one under "reap, sow, repeat."
VIENNA, Austria (AP)--OPEC's decision to cut its oil output target by 4 percent starting Thursday will cause prices to rise from their already high levels, analysts predicted...
Some analysts... said the cut could soon push crude prices above the psychologically important threshold of $40 per barrel and worsen the pain for U.S. motorists.
My jaw drops whenever I read, hear or see another exculpation of keeping CAFE standards low for vehicles that are, for the greater number of their uses, outrageously bigger and heavier than they need to be. The energy needed to get a person and their briefcase to work via automobile includes the energy required to move the automobile itself. Cars are a lot heavier than the people they transport. Engine design is obviously important, but so is car body design. The two most common refrains against improvements? (1) SUVs are safer and (2) consumers demand them. Let me eviscerate both arguments...
(1) Bullshit. Safer for the SUV driver. Maybe. May-bee. In certain accidents, yes, but to the unfortunate disadvantage of the driver and passengers in any other vehicle involved in an accident who also may be - according to one study I recall but can't find - less likely to be at fault than the tank driver. Making this argument is selfish in addition to being wrong.
(2) Bullshit. about 2 out of 3 or 3 out of 5 (statistics via my bunghole) of the automobile advertisements that bombard me on my TV or popup on my computer are for Hummers, Expeditions, Land Cruisers or similar monstrosities. They're depicted carrying happy, beautiful outdoorsy types on the oh-so-typical commute across the Serengeti or up Mt. McKinley. Marketers aren't stupid. They're manufacturing demand in the most effective manner.
A few months ago my wife, kid, dog and I - loaded up with supplies for a four day stay at the beach - stopped at our favorite mid-trip watering hole and monument to kitsch. While filling up the tank of our primary car, a handsome fellow, alone, in his Excursion pulls up across the pumps. "Whoa!" he laments. "This is highway robbery. Is it this bad around here? How 'bout farther up in North Carolina? I'd go a little further on this tank if I thought I could spend less."
Let me repeat that for you. "I'd go a little further on this tank if I thought I could spend less." I refrained from engaging in a discussion about economic externalities directly related to dependence on fossil fuels. I simply told him I get almost 40 miles to the gallon so shopping around isn't necessary.
While consumers do have responsibility (and I differ from those who argue that choosing to drive or not is more important; that whether you drive a Hummer or a hybrid is secondary) I take direct issue with the all-too-prevalent stubbornness of the auto industry, especially the American one.
And this speaks to a more general problem within American corporations. They whine and moan and resist enhancing environmental or other regulation - spending millions on lobbying, suing, contributing to friendly politicians - instead of just improving their technology and processes. If they put half that money into getting ahead of the curve so-to-speak, maybe the foreign firms - who far more regularly do just that - wouldn't beat them to the punch as often when new regulations finally come around.
