American Exceptionalism

As a follow up to an earlier post and a comment I received. Although conventional wisdom on the right points to 9/11 as a failure of previous policies of containment, appeasement and traditional terror fighting methods, this is a strawman. We are all familiar with the PDB presented to the preznit whilst on his hols in Crawford warning of a gathering threat and the determination of al qaida to strike at the American homeland. It was through the willful disregard of this and other warnings that 9/11 was such a catastrophe and surprise to this nation. It was however, no surprise to the intelligence community and indeed, a few lightbulbs must have pinged at the WH, even though they were quick to deny it and slow, if not reluctant to have the matter investigated. They remain, to this day, close lipped about the events leading up to that day and unwilling to countenance a true independent investigation. The truth can be a terrible, heartless foe.

The chatter and raw intelligence coming into CIA, NSA and all the other institutions internal and worldwide pointed to something 'large' about to happen. This administration acted with, what we now know as systemic, it's usual lack of urgency, ignoring the warnings, failing to alert it's own domestic law enforcement partners, hushing up inconvenient whistleblowers and concentrating instead upon it's policies of pampering and paying back it's corporate, crony sponsors.

The right is also quick to cite the London and Madrid bombings as further evidence of a fatal flaw in the prosecution of a conventional approach to fighting terror. Even though those two events happened after 9/11 and the entire world was on a high alert status. But that is how terrorism works - and matastacizes. The fact that 9/11 was such a stunning success assisted in the development and financing of further plots and schemes, some of which were prevented, others that, unfortunately, were not. The key to fighting terror is to learn from both your successes and your failures, there will be death and destruction but there will be containment and prevention and prosecutions and imprisonment and eventually the money trail will lead us to the true sponsors of international terrorism, they being the true perpetrators of these heinous crimes against humanity but, perhaps, we already know who and that truth is just too shocking. Spain and Britain - both familiar with domestic terrorism and it's long reach into the collective consciousness - in the aftermath of their respective bombings, did not immediately begin to formulate plans to invade a distant middle east country in revenge for the new carnage suffered on their shores. Both countries bestowed new and unprecedented powers on their domestic law enforcement and internal security agencies and within the letters of these new laws have had some staggering successes.

Every terrorist organization, as is well known, has to fulfill certain needs in order rise and flourish; a charismatic leader, an easily replaceable charismatic leader, reliable financial backers, an easily understood ideology, an easily demonized and recognizable foe, a few spectacular successes as a recruiting tool and the continued ineptitude of its foe to figure out what it is they are up to. As a simplified but demonstrable example of the destruction of the hydra-terrorist organization we can look to the Emerald Isle. With both domestic and international help Britain was able to identify cell leaders of the IRA and through observation, infiltration and intelligence was able, eventually, to identify the very top leaders of the organization - know your enemy. Through the same techniques they were able to identify NORAID as a front organization that funnelled money into the IRA coffers - ultimately, once funds were cut off or at least restricted the IRA was forced to rob banks and gas stations to fund its operations and arms acquisitions, not the best uses of it's men or materiel. By finally engaging and investing the Irish government in the peace process acts of violence were no longer tacitly approved as an inevitable part of the political struggle. The IRA found itself culturally and politically on the sidelines and was forced to politicize in order to be represented at the peace table. Through, initially secret, communications the British government was able to negotiate with Sinn Fein and present, as fait a'complete, the building blocks to Northern Irish self rule and ultimately self determination. It took many years, there were many road blocks and pitfalls but, instead of force an international - we must never forget the American will and resolve displayed in making this succeed - political framework was established and a political solution finally arrived at. History -aint it grand?

Stranglers

'Sometimes, it's tougher to look than to leap!

Plan F

Perhaps the biggest problem this administration had in the aftermath of 9/11 was that it had absolutely no idea how to fight a GWOT and still doesn't. However, they did figure out a - very bad - way to conventionalize it. That they were gifted the backing of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan where the Taliban, initially, turned out to be not much more than a rag-tag militia and were easily swept off the battlefield only to morph into what we see today. And, that the only apparent or manipulated path forward from that first encounter with the ideology of islamofascist-ring-a-ma-ting was to find a predominantly secular, target rich environment and stay for awhile, completely ignoring what we had learned in Afghanistan about the cynical and barbarous nature of our enemy, remaining blithe to the emotional and tactical shifts of both those nations as a direct reaction to occupation, in parallel with alienating the international community - coalition of the willing notwithstanding - through roughshod treatment of pertinent alliances and existing treaties and blatant arrogance, we arrive where we are today, a mere Friedman Unit from turning the tide in Iraq - again - without still never actually having to confront the realities and consequences of the conflicts at hand and where these consequences will lead us to in the future.

There are many nations of the world very familiar and competent at dealing with both international and domestic terrorism within their borders, there are institutions and world bodies tasked with the collection and dissemination of information regarding terrorist entities, the players, their ideologies and their methods. There are enforcement agencies cooperating around the world with the infiltration and fighting of terrorist organizations, some with great success. There are proven - in the battlefield - models and strategies in existence that will help with the fight against terrorism. But, this administration chose to ignore that route, that skill-set of collective knowledge, strategies and techniques and chose instead to invade Iraq, an albeit prominent part of a self-styled 'Axis of Evil' and constant thorn in the foot of dear leader and his neocon cabal, but, for the most part, a contained and strategical non-entity, except that is for oil and as a showcase for crackpot theories and political sloganeering - winning elections and creating a permanent republican majority, that is - certainly not for anything honorable. So, not only do we rebuff the world - 'CoW' notwithstanding - and all the opportunities inherent with partnerships forged in collective and shared responsibility, we ignite a powder keg and strap it to our service men and womens back and talk of 'diminishing expectations'. It is self immolation on a grand and unforgiveable scale. It would be inconceiveable if it wasn't actually happening before our very eyes.

Executive Decisions

Digby finds a nut. Executive pay, meanwhile, continues to rise unabated.

Name That Paper...

You just know there will be a competition to name this marriage of the macabre!

Faux Street Journal
Wall Street Noise
etc.

I know the reporting can be excellent in the WSJ - that will surely come to an abrupt end - but the editorial page is abominable! A pox on both their houses...

Rock On

Dirty F@*%ing Hippy Edition....

Syriaously

Will Condi be reprimanded by Darth Cheney for her "Bad Behavior" - not likely.

Could this be a result of the Pelosi trip described by CNN as 'Talking With Terrorists'

''There has been some movement by the Syrians ... there has been a reduction in the flow of foreign fighters into Iraq'' for more than a month, Caldwell said.

Bad behavior indeed!

Old Con

There has been endless debate about the Neocon-Theocratic alliance and it's rise and fall, mostly the discussion centers around who is using who or whether the power bloc in this administration is truely christian in it's belief system or whether there is a belief system at all. Does the Shrub pray or prey, it is probably irrelevant. I think as we move into the end game here things will become more evident, not about the relationship between these two competing philosophies - and they are competing - but about each competing element and how they came to such prominence. Neither side will ever admit that they were used by the other so the infrastructure will never be exposed as perhaps most 'progressive' Americans would like, the secret meetings, in smoke and incense filled rooms, and the agenda discussed therein will remain just that - secret. That a deal was done and 'wish-lists' exchanged there is no doubt, I think SCOTUS and unhinged, unquestioning loyalty to dear leader were the lynchpins to whatever other agreements were thrashed out between the two and if the christian right lost out on many of their cherished theological misinterpretations - quickly abandoned by the neocons - they at least have SCOTUS as a lasting legacy to hang their mitres on and it was a huge victory that I remain furious and discouraged with. The neocon agenda, meanwhile, reached a precipitous foreign policy zenith with the conquering of a third rate power - Iraq, fed in part by a wave of unquestioning patriotic myopia on behalf of the American electorate and a coordinated coup d'etat of a spineless fourth estate initiated and sustained by the bretheren.

As most on the left watch and comment, more astutely than I ever can on, the "slow-motion car crash" that is this administration, the neocon/theocratic blastwall continues to provide political and amoral cover for this administrations incompetence and deceit, even as both entities suffer from perceived hypocracy and irrelevance. Am I sure about this decline? What's on the agenda for the next 19 months, what policies is this administration formulating, in what direction do they want to steer the ship of state? Anyone on the right talking about the next great policy initiative? - I didn't think so! They are still defending NCLB, Tax Cuts for the Rich, the Clean Air Act, Medicaid Reform, in fact every piece of legislation this administration brought forth and had rubberstamped by those idiotic congresses is under siege or under review, under funded or underground in the case of Social Security Reform. And, Iraq and foreign policy in general, the President can stamp his feet and mouth absurdities until the cows come home, the days of preemptive war and never-ending conflicts with zero accountability are over and rightly so.

Both christo-fascism and neocon ideologies have one fatal flaw - inflexibility. They demand that all the laws of society, religion even science conform to their rigid world view regardless of the improbability of that ever really happening and like an unbending piece of metal plunged into liquid hydrogen once exposed and tapped a few times on a solid surface the whole thing shatters. This society and many others like us have thrived on the ability of its people and government to absorb, adapt to and embrace potentially disastrous events, they become moments that define us, change us and mold us but, this requires elasticity of thought not rigid conformity. Catastrophe and contentment should be shared by all of us, no body owns the exclusive rights to either.

We Pay These People?

TPM's coverage of the USA Scandal has been nothing short of exemplary. Can a blog win a Pulitzer...? Maybe they need a new category. The slime installed at Justice and surely Schlozman is the slimiest, are having their cruel handiwork exposed, layer by ugly layer.

What Glenn Sez!

Has America ever functioned as a true DEMOCRACY, or has the most extreme right wing christo-fascist aristocracy always held sway over our national debates and policy making? It's a valid question. I see no evidence, historically, that America was anything other than a fledgling Anglocentric feudal state, replete with a top-down class system, teetering on the brink of outright theocracy - discuss!

Rock On

Just to keep your spirits up, dear reader.

Why anyone imagines that Iggy and the Ramones invented punk is beyond me!

Mission Accomplished

I hate even having this noodles mugshot on my blog but it is Mission Accomplished Day and I think everyone should be reminded of such. Now in our fourth year of the occupation it is staggering to comprehend the death, destruction and chaos this administration has wrought. We have over 3,300 of our servicemen and women dead, 27,000 injured, over 9,000 seriously. New projections on spending have the war costs coming in at around $500 Billion. We have stopped counting the Iraqi dead. There was a 25% increase in terrorist incidents worldwide (the majority of attacks accounting for the increase occured in Iraq - seriously) in 2006 and we have had 104 troops killed in April. If we project that count as an average of, oh say, 90 a month until we receive a non-conclusive, progress unrelated, non-binding, milestone or benchmark free report in September that will be another 450 dead american soldiers with 2,812 injured, 927 seriously.

To counter this auspicious day - suspicious accounts surface of the death of Al Qaida's #1 guy in Iraq - of course our government is being cautious, some would say skeptical, about reports coming out of Iraq on al Masri's demise but it happened to be the #1 story this morning. Now if they had only been as cautious and skeptical of the intelligence coming out of Iraq 4 years ago perhaps we would not be in this mess. Wait a minute, the intelligence coming out of Iraq 4 years ago was coming mainly from UNSCOM - they couldn't find any WMD or evidence of a 'nucular' program - talk about an inconvenient truth. Bush ordered them out in advance of 'Schlock and Bore'.

They really are tawdry little men, I'm still in shock that 62MM people voted for these buffoons... blood's on their hands too.

Update: Whatever the hell Bush is on... I want some!

Still Winning

'The more they kill us, the more we'll send' philosophy is working just fine... so far. Just 4 more months until this administration is willing to report on this latest fiasco. Progress, meanwhile, will be measured utilizing a whole new set of parameters, that is - none.

Speaking of disastrous wars and their consequences... Mr. Olmert - resign, already!

William Kristol, as prognosticators go, is quite possibly the frontrunner for the prestigious, and completely ficticious Krakatoa Award for 'Most Outstandingly Ill-Informed Moments in Punditry' for his assertion that Shia - Sunni tensions were mere "Pop Psychology", the fact that it is now systemic and institutionalized in Iraq is irrelevant to a great mind like Mr. Kristols.

Now this is funny stuff... Mr. Wolfowitz - shut up and resign, already!

Rainy Saturday Afternoon

Seems like such a nice boy....

Lower... lower... yeah! Right There.

Our "AIDS Czar" has a penchant for dusky maidens and hot oil... Oh! The humanity.

Science Saturday

More War

It's all just to save Shrub's ass. This has been the Conventional Wisdom on the blogs for months, now the New York Times finally hops aboard the 'Iraq Tour To Nowhere.'

Fall-Up Guy

George Tenet refutes the White House line on his (in)famous "Slam-Dunk" prophecy claiming it has been used out of context by various, most notably Darth Cheney, administration hacks. Tenet may be trying to absolve himself from blame in the Iraq scandal but, at the end of the day, his clumsy fingerprints are all over the scene of the crime. That one cliched phrase could bring down this close 'Bush Family' ally is not worthy of scrutiny, Tenet got out from under whilst the going was turning from good to sloppy but his key role in the lead up to war is irrefuteable. The '02 NIE was most probably doctored or, at the very least, the necessary caveats for the far-reaching speculatives removed. The fact that most of the explosive intelligence contained within the NIE was single sourced and from mostly dubious, self-interested parties can only lead to one conclusion - the whole thing was an horrendous con-job. That it partially cited several other intelligence sevices from around the world gave only scant credence to a document that, at its time of publication and digestion, was being roundly refuted and ridiculed by non-partisan experts from both here and abroad. I remember reading at the time a lot of the articles and papers cited in the recent, brilliant Bill Moyers documentary and was always wary of this administrations claims. It wasn't difficult to find those counter claims to the 'Aluminum Tubes', 'Mobile Chemical Labs', 'Yellowcake', 'Meetings in Prague', 'Al Qaida in Iraq' etc. I merely logged on to a European web-site or went to the BBC on-line with which Blair was having a terrible time. There for all to see was proof positive that American intelligence was at best faulty and at worst completely fabricated. When Powell went to the UN I watched amazed that the same stuff I had seen debunked only days and weeks before was being regurgitated by a once well respected statesman and who sat behind him through the whole tawdry ordeal, Mr. Tenet and lordy, Negreponte. Right then the rest of the world knew that a pile was about to be unloaded. That Powell's reception was cool and the aftermath mixed - at least they weren't rolling around the aisles in paroxisms of laughter - Tenet should have known that the jig was up. Right then he should have gone public and blown the whole flimsy operation wide open, then he may have garnered our respect. To write a book that continues to defend this buffoon of a president whilst attacking his personal tormentors within the cabinet and with nary a tilt to his own shortcomings and failings, after 27,000 casualties on our side alone smacks of the cruelest and most cynical arrogance. When it really mattered - you kept your mouth shut - now... who gives a damn about another internal republican scandal, it's difficult just keeping up with the ones we already have.

Heckuva Job ______________ (Name)

Now that it is slowly being revealed that practically every department in this administration is populated with either complete, blubbering imbeciles or gentleman-C-corporate-schills capable only of satisfying a political agenda scrawled by some unseen hand with crayon on their monthly planners, we must assume that there must be a higher authority guiding these infantile miscreants because, god bless 'em, they could never have possibly conceived of something as dastardly as the destruction of the United States of America as we know it by themselves, collectively these hacks could brain storm for three days and nary moisten a napkin. It can't be coming from the White House because we've seen the reasoning power available there and let's be honest, if Dick Cheney is your political heavy weight, your deep thinker and policy guru then grey matter is not your strong suit. As for turdblossom, I don't think having the ability to fool the American public, for some of the time, could ever be perceived as 'genius' because, for the most part, the great American public are ill-informed, incurious wretches ill-served by their public servants and misled by their public media. Your average wo/man-on-the-street cares more about Sheryl Crowe's sanitary habits than s/he does about how they have been lied to consistently over the life of this administration. Is it their fault though? Not really - when we are governed by fools who's constant screw ups have been eagerly covered up or under reported or ignored or, unforgiveably, excused by a media elite and fawning upper class obsessed only with their own access and advancement. So, if everyone in government is a blithering idiot and the fourth estate has acquiessed its responsibility to act as watchdog over these nincompoops and their hairbrained trivialities and the people who could actually voice their disquiet and force a change are more interested in a cure for erectile disfunction and a safer alternative to botox then, who's running the show? I used to think it was a Carlisle Group or some such revered body of sage old men, it's board equally split between robber barons and philanthropes, the perfect balance of greed and largesse - freedom of action and social responsibility - aggression and diplomacy - nah! It makes no sense for them to rock the boat this much, why risk everything by installing a pseudo-religious, neocon cabal who's primary goals appear to be bombing the rest of the world back to the stone age and de-evolving America and its proxy's into a 16C patriarchal theocracy. Where's the money to made there? Could it be the vatican or even the big 'G' man? It's no secret the Holy Roman Empire has been making money from ignorance for millenia, perhaps they would be best served if their congregation was an amorphous blob of humanity completely dependent on 7C twaddle just like the good old days, and, once Dubya and his band of merry mendacants have reduced the world to a pile of smouldering ruins in will ride the papist shock troops to restore Roman hegemony - Nah! It can't be God, if he ever existed at all, and I am more than dubious on that score, it's obvious he long ago abandoned this little rock in space for some greener pastures where the inhabitants were not so - fickle. My own theory... the hand guiding humanity's steady decline - it has to be someone incredibly rich, intellectually powerful, really pissed off and possibly, believed dead - what? You think I really know? See what I mean about the American public!

Rock On

Only the best for you, dear reader...

End of Days?

Is this the end run for this administration? Collectively, the weight of scandal and truth may become too much for even the broad shouldered arrogance of our ruling elite. Rove may have pushed the 'political' envelope too far even for his own administration. Although, why we should expect a thorough investigation from one of their own political appointees beats me. I don't know how the OSC operates and by the description given above I'm not sure how much investigative clout they really have.

Meanwhile back at the Jack Abramoff ranch, more dudes face a ropin', good grief - but that man had some reach.

The Pat Tillman story will unravel the ties between the Pentagon propaganda shop and perhaps the political shop that controls all propaganda emanating from this administration. Or, at the very least provide a snap-shot of the prosecution of this administrations wars (both just and unjust)and how they have attempted to twist, not just the Tillman story, but every one of their stupid glorifications of war and of themselves.

And, of course USAgate where the pressure mounts.

Two things worth reading... Juan Cole, it really is a daily must read and of course my other daily must read here.

The Arch-Angel

Gabriel in one of his rare lighter moods

Loadsa Money

Hey... remember Mark Foley? No one knows where he is but, he's spending an awful lot of money - republican money that is - on briefs and not the tighty-whitey variety. Makes you wonder about this great country of ours, I think the Florida citizenry should know if a sexual predator is in their midst. Lock Up Your Sons!

Pro - Who's - Life

Scott Limieux at Tapped has all the links you'll ever really need to delve into the cesspool that is Rightwing-Christianist-Pro-Life hypocracy, if you so choose... take a few towels because it gets real messy. Of course it is not just the abortion issue that has these people and their appallingly ill-conceived ideas so thoroughly exposed. Take Newt Gingrich for example, that beacon of common sense and intellectual foresight expounding on his favorite subject, apart from himself, 'How liberals have caused everything bad to happen.' But, we're told, no-one should be making cheap political hay from this terrible tragedy, which basically means, for the MSM, liberals shut up until the serious conservatives have had their fill at the trough. They even dragged out Ted Nugent fer chrissakes, the man is a heavily armed lunatic that in any other civilized country in the world would be spurned as one would spurn a mainged cat. Then we have the very public spectacle of Abu Gonzalez clinging desperately to the pant leg of the Preznit in a vain glorious attempt to prevent a self inflicted, incompetence inspired death spiral. It's getting almost too ugly to watch and begs the question - does this administration own a moral compass? Finally... we have Iraq, where Harry Reid has stated the obvious and Wingnuttia has had a collective spontaneous hernia. I still don't know what victory would look like but apparently it would look a lot like what has happened up to now only different and more scary and less clinical I would imagine. Not widely reported but significant is the administrations backpeddling on the 'as they stand up we stand down' rhetoric, it has been replaced by the 'surge' as the epithet du jour but, remember, 'as they stand up we stand down' carried this blithering idiot of a preznit through a hard fought, close election only to be abandoned upon review. How long before the surge becomes passe and we move on to the next stall tactic? About 3 to 4 months - apparently.

Now... That's Entertainment

Why all 'Pop' does not have to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Communimication

Digby has a great post that expands upon some of the stuff I have been babbling incoherently about. That we have such a terrible communicator and incompetent in the White House it begs the questions; why does the MSM work so hard to make this man credible, what do they have at stake and what are they so afraid of?

Rock On

Bryan at his sartorial best

The Press

Glen Greenwald has the latest polling coming out of WaPo/ABC, it's not pretty if you are a Republican/President/Warmonger... it is also not pretty if you are a Republican/Journalist/Tool. The numbers, across the board, suggest that the American public willfully embraces the notion that this administration and it's proxy's in the wingnut-punditocracy clearly have no idea what they are doing or saying. The numbers just keep getting worse and worse but have been largely ignored up to now by the WH, editorial boards and wingnut-talking heads. These entities no longer have any right whatsoever to claim their arguments are based on what the average-moderate-'murican perceives. Not only have they been consistantly wrong prognosticating on Iraq, Plamegate, the NSC scandal, Rovegate I, II, III, IV (should I go on..? I could you know), the DOJ debacle, Libby etc., they have consistantly evoked the will of the American people as proof positive for their dangerous, baseless fantasies. The fact that Darth Cheney, a serial liar and Constitutional menace, is still allowed on our television sets, on a Sunday too, is testament to the disdain and contempt the mainstream media has for us, the American public. From the poll we can rightly assume that large majorities of Americans want a timetable for our withdrawl from Iraq, that Congress is right to impose strictures on a president run amok, believe that the firing of the USA's was politically motivated, that Abu Gonzales should resign, that Rove and Myers should testify publically and under oath, that Nancy Pelosi is not the third coming of the anti-christ and that Congress (The Democratic Congress that is!) should have a say in foreign policy decisions. There were many other relevant questions posed by the poll and we should perhaps all go there and have a look. But for me, Nancy polling at 53% approval is the most damning of statistics, after all the ballyhoo about her recent Syria trip, where she was all but accused of treason and political suicide, we find that a majority of the American public supports her with bells on. So who are these people talking to or trying to convince? Seems to me, the only people who believe their crap do not need any more convincing, they are the hard core, so why waste time and copy on them? When will our media catch up to their public and why is it taking so long? There has been a huge paradigm shift in American thinking recently but to watch, listen or read the traditional media you would never know it, they are not reporting it, not acknowledging it and worse not responding to it. Ask not for whom the bell tolls...!

One Of Those Saturday Afternoons

For me... one of the best videos evah! The Beautiful South

Suffering Through

I'm going to try and work through this as I write because the premise is probably a little wobbly and has been done before and better by other people. But, looking at the new round of scandals coming down the pipe and by that I mean the 8 USA's, the 5MM e-mails, the fact that Dick Cheney still runs foreign policy within this administration, Wolfowitz and his kept woman, etc, etc, how uninformed do they think we are? Now, GWB (also, oddly enough, an anacronym for Gypsum Wall Board) may not be the keenest utensil in the horizontal storage area - maybe his handlers test every crackpot theory they have on him first as some kind of policy for dummies litmus test - but he's the best front man they've got and they march him out in front of the cameras and select audiences with every necessity, only to utter the usual platitudes and bromides we have come to expect. His speaking style has been heavily critiqued and caricatured, the emphasis is all wrong, the smile is unappropriate and insincere, the smirk arrives at the oddest moments, ad infinitum. The sound bites that make the evening news and cable shows are hackneyed and bellicose but, my question is... who is he talking to? Who is watching what he does and says anymore? The base? That eroding, fundamentaly flawed percentage hanging on to his every word like the good little Bushies they are? Probably... the only other people watching, and this is the point, the news with any fervent degree of sophistication, as far as I can see, watch only to see the reaction from the peanut gallery, they remain disinterested and unconvinced by the arguments. Personally, I don't even listen to the speeches any more, just the breakdown afterward, I know what he is going to say I just want to find out who's still inbibing the coolade on the good ship neocon and who has finally given up all hope of ever seeing this administration actually make a reasoned adjustment mid-stream and are therefore inclined to abandon said ship. So the president is not talking to me or 61% of the rest of the country. What does this say? And, what does this mean about this present administration? That is what I'm pondering now... and I hope to post on it a few more times. Just what does it mean when an administration no longer cares about the majority of its citizens and has, apparently, given up even trying to communicate to them?

And... predictably

Family Valuables

Paul Wolfowitz, President of the World Bank, architect of the I-raq catastrophe, noted neocon and exposed nepotist begged for our understanding yesterday in an excruciatingly embarrassing and putrid press conference. His piece of stuff, Ms. Riza, had risen to an exulted pay scale at Foggybottom thanks largely to Mr. Wolfowitz' patronage and arm twisting. But for Mr. Wolfowitz it had all been a terrible personal tradgedy, you see... getting caught really sucks and stuff. The corruption in this government knows no bounds and yes you could argue that Wolfie is no longer part of this administration but who got him his cushy job at the World Bank? What you think he applied for it at a local DC job fair? Wolfowitz is the architect of many failed ventures, this one having involved his co-habitor receiving $197,000.00 or so - tax free - from both State and the World Bank, none of which have hampered his career or earning power or status as a Titan of Wingnuttia. Whenever these grown-ups get caught with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar they fall on their swords and beg for forgiveness in a second, only to be rehabilitated in equally short order by a complacent press and compliant justice system to continue with their plundering ways. Why? Because they have painted themselves as the 'values' folks, compassionate and mature, above the fray of DC politics, paragons and protectors of the American way of life, virtuous, judeo/christian and wise. And the 30 percenters and the Washington press corp ate it up, hook, line and sinker and continue to eat at the same trough and no amount of hypocrisy, criminality or sheer spite will ever change that. And, when it just gets too slimey and grubby they plead the fifth, plead to their enabling base or blame a Clinton, any Clinton... Chelsea made me do it, honest!

Bloody Vikings

Madrugada

Power World

Local Boy Done Good... Terry Sullivan.

Dissembling

So the preznit insists that his vetoing of the supplemental will cause longer tours of duty for our servicemen in I-raq and increase the hardship on military families as a result, he's all for our troops isn't he! Next thing you know, without the supplemental even being presented for the idiot's veto his Secretary of Defense announces that tours of duty for servicemen in I-raq will be extended, effective immediately! Now, we are assured that GI's will be given a full twelve months rest and recuperation upon return from the carnage so the next fifteen months won't seem so bad huh? And... wait for it, wait for it, our soldiers must share the burden and sacrifice , wha? This war has been going on for four years already, we have lost 3,295 men and women, we have countless soldiers maimed and injured both physically and mentally, we have an unspecified amount of I-raqi's dead, injured, terrorized, fleeing and protesting, there are many people out there making incredible sacrifices every day for this war of illusion, not one of them works in the White House, or on Wall Street or in the Board Rooms of Corporate America. This administration has asked our servicemen to sacrifice for the last four years and does not want restrictions, or timetables or realistic benchmarks imposed upon it so it can extend their (our soldier's) sacrifice indefinitely. All this with the supplemental not even vetoed yet. It staggers the mind, I mean really!

Cocteau Hour

Buffletucky Redux

A day or so ago, the Buffalo News published yet another anti-casino "My View". Authored, and I use that term loosely, by Tom O'Malley a teacher in Buffalo who firmly believes that '...gambling is a drain on the economy, not a boon.' To back up his assertion Mr. O'Malley offered no economic data and no statistics, not even a wee bit of historical evidence that may prop up his contention. He did, however paint an horrific but exagerated image of endless lines in his local convenience store as zombie-like folks frittered away their hard earned cash on the lottery, only to lurk in darkened corners for their ship to come in. Mr. O'Malley then went on to opine, poetically, about the 'essence of Buffalo' seen through his nostalgia ridden rose tinted glasses. Buffalo as strategic trade center during the heyday of the Erie Canal, Buffalo as a world renowned arts and culture center, Frederick Law Olmsted and Frank Lloyd Wright as architectural luminaries bedecking our 'City of Light'. A city of beautiful neighborhoods where hobbit like residents cheerfully pull together through blizzards and 'missed field goals... good grief... he does go on mind you. In his infantile, prosaic manner he manages to make Buffalo sound almost mythic, even conjuring up images of ancient Athens, lordy! Why does this kind of fuzzy brained, intellectual dishonesty persist in this town? It is because the Mr. O'Malley's and countless other high minded, blithering idiots who wrongly perceive themselves as the governing conscience of this poor city, live in the surviving nice neighborhoods, go to work in this years model and remain oblivious of the rot surrounding them. Look, Buffalo has a few nice things and a somewhat historic past, but we cannot continue to allow this blighted burg to become some fanciful chimera cordoned off from the future by these tireless toe-heads. Mr. O'Malley cites the flight of our youth from this town and somehow conflates that with the evils of gambling. The reason our young leave this town is because the kind of bucolic, misty-eyed thinking Mr. O'Malley expounds cannot put food on their tables. What does Mr. O'Malley want us to do, build more bloody museums, where we can't sell the old crap to buy new, build more theaters and small intimate shops along Elmwood Avenue, build another bloody canal? He does not say nor does he say who will pay for it, certainly not him... I'll hazard. To attain the progress we so desperately need, this city needs investment, it needs commerce and it needs buzz. Listening to poetry and playing a lute in Delaware Park dressed only in a toga and a laurel wreath may be Mr. O'Malley's vision for the future of Buffalo but I think in reality we need something a little more tangible a little more real. The casino, for all its ills, will not become a loadstone around our collective necks, it will become a mere component in an economic recovery for downtown and that is downtown as a destination... imagine. The Mr. O'Malleys of this town will not and do not contribute to the momentum necessary to create growth, they complain about change, they agitate for the status quo, they block progress and long for a past they never knew and is irrelevant to this city's future.

Overtly Exposed

Cheney exposed as a liar here. Goodling resigns from the DOJ and rightly so, as queried by Josh Marshall, how can someone who has pleaded the 5th, before they were even 'interviewed' remain in a position at the the DOJ for crying out loud? More DOJ fun in Minneapolis as Ms. Paulose' management style is revealed for what it really is... not much management and certainly no style. This is what happens when you put a 34 year old toe-licker (male or female, it matters not) with no managerial experience in a position where ideological and policy adherence has absolutely no relevance. This administration is turning the DOJ into a laughing stock and the CW remains that Turd Blossom is a genius, hey, it's his plan remember, looks more and more like Mr. Rove is merely an over-achieving political thug with his only saving grace being that he wasn't caught sooner. Blame that on a complacent and bedazzled media. His single minded demolition of the DOJ by political fiat will be exposed in the next few weeks along with all our other government institutions bespoiled by his fetid touch. The GSA appears to have the reek of Turd eminating and when you politicize paper clip and file folder procurement well...
Orin Hatch was totally exposed as an administration stoogebot, proclaiming that Ms. Lam, the USA for San Diego, was not only incompetent but a Clinton political operative, his performance on MTP however, was not only predictable and quite possibly libelous, but embarrassing. To unstintingly support the current AG, the unfortunately nicknamed Abu Gonzales, and then reveal your own interest in his job is, quite frankly, a ludicrous position to find oneself in and Orin handled it with all the aplomb and finesse of a car crash. Of course the blithering idiot Timmeh saw no irony even though Sen. Leahy appeared to be smirking with glee at the absurdity of the moment.
His Royal Shrillness, meantime, continues to insist that Congress must bow to his demands on the supplemental and produce a clean Bill with no timetables and no pork within the constraints of his made-up timetable, wha!. The fact that the Speaker of the House is in the Middle East, doing something his small brain(trust) cannot comprehend, shows the level of gravitas the good lady attaches to his hollow posturing and trenchant adherence to his own failed policies, speak to the hand Mr. President... Relative to this, is the robotic squealing from the minority about the amount of pork attached to the Bill, are we to assume that the Republican minority has had an epiphany of sorts with regard to swine meat, is this a kosher moment for the most profligate/criminal congress in history, the old 109th aka "The Fightin' The Boar But The Boar Won 109th". They really have no shame!
What did I miss?

'07 The Year of the Twat! (Pregnant Fish)

I fear the same tactics, used by republicans, to cripple and immasculate the Clinton I administration are about to become remanifest, this time with the entire congress and the Constitution as their targets. They are admitted masters of the transparantly unscrupulous dirty trick and they are already at it. In this instance they are preemptively imagining the havoc they shall reek without regard for the consequences or rewards. It is malice aforethought, they seek only to injure, in the name of 'their' America. The rest of us used to have to sit back and accept that this is the way it is done in DC especially by the adults in the republican party who know what is good for us better than anyone. Not any more, now we can hold them accountable, expose their bitter, malignant and hypocritical actions before they have had time to fester and infect the populace at large. Republican masters and their operative lacky's will stop at nothing to get back on Easy (K) Street, it is up to us to put the word out and prevent that from ever happening again. Photograph by Suza - Sunset at Sugarloaf.

Moonshine - by Suza

"The tragedy is not that those who rose so high should fall so low. The tragedy is that those who had so low an appreciation for our government should have risen to such high positions in it." Herbert Block - 1974... Picked this snippet up from Digby, of course Block was talking about Ford and Nixon and the inexplicable and perhaps criminal pardoning of the the latter by the former. You can argue all you want about that, it's ancient history... personally, they should have tried Nixon and given the episode and him and the country and the rule of law some closure and credibility. And, inadvertently saved the future from a debate that is, quite frankly, irrelevant. All republicans are crooks, always have been, always will be... What moved me about the quote and it comes from a piece I recommend you read, is it's relevance to the shoddy bunch presently leading this country to nowhere, they despise government, they despise the rule of law, they despise intrusion, they despise the environment, they despise international treaties, they despise tolerance, they despise equality, they despise a 'Modern Society', so why in the hell are they running this country and not living on some off-shore island tax-shelter counting their pennies and bossing Macaca around all day long... they can afford it and America is just not going to work for them as a Democracy! Beats me why they even bother, there must be something deeper here, illuding me, something about the psyche of an affluent, power crazed, middle aged, white, hypocrite-cow-poke-wannabee that I'm just not getting... I can see I am going to have to ponder deeply about this... got it!

Merry... ?

As our dedicated, competent and infallable Administration mulls over their ever dwindling options (read: Option 1 - Dignify this terrible decision somehow.) with our go-getter, defeat is not an option and, let's face it, manly military brass we, the American People, spend our time grappling with the more mundane aspects of life during wartime, like trying to get through the holiday period relatively unscathed. And, as for relatives, we have few here in WNY so we always consider ourselves a scathe free zone. We spent Xmas day in the tranquil environs of exhaustion as the boys muddled their way through the tech world where, unlike the old lego days, my assistance is uncalled for if not downright frowned upon, that is until something goes terribly wrong and they fry something really important and I have to intervene before they wipe my hard drive and 'she who must be obeyed' loses her entire photo collection and I'm in the guest room for an extended but undetermined time. Xmas dinner presumed itself upon us with our one living close family member, the wife's 90 year old mother, who decked out in her seasonal finery... furs and silks, spent an inordinate amount of money at one of the finer eateries of Buffalo. She, wrongly, felt that we had ignored her through dinner, relegating her few oft repeated bon mots to distractions to the greater discourse. It is telling that the greater discourse between my wife and two young sons relied heavily upon the gluttonous eating habits of our esteemed patron as she carved her way through a fine menu, spectacularly outeating my 13 year old half bear/half boy of a son. We quibbled over the driving arrangements from the restaurant to home... I had gotten myself half in the bag prior to the festivities in a vain attempt to create, for myself, a half world where none of this was really happening to me and dining with Satan was just a scene from an old Joan Crawford movie. As the reality surged at my incomplete fortress and as she kept ordering more and more food, I, naturally, drank more and more, the second martini was unnecessary, the second bottle of Chateaux D'Chassilley gratuitous and the nightcap superfluous... I was a blithering idiot... happily slumped in the back with the two boys we dropped off Mrs. Creosote and wended to the family nest. Another Christmas Day over, now the holiday season can really kick-in, now the serious shopping can begin, now the chance to sin invested in our drunken revelries.

Starting To Feel A Lot Like Xmas

So I'm reading the God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and... well he's very persuasive isn't he? I've always been somewhat agnostic, perhaps even beating on the door of atheism but - ah there is always a but - I have tried to imagine a world with a God, a world where a beneficent being watches over us and provides guidance and love. Silly hippy shit when you get down to the bare bones but I've gone there, believe me. I was raised in the CofE, morphed to Quakerism, dabbled with Bhuddism, fell in and out of love with the Jesuits, procrastinated over New Age deism and finally shoved off the rock and let it all go... now, I understand that no matter what religion one endures they are all capable of turning good men into bloody pulps for no other reason than to serve the ones who presume to benefit from that flesh extortion. We have so diluted the words of our wise men, so polluted the messages from our forebears that we struggle to understand the very basic tenets that came down, apparently from on high... heavy with purpose and intent, laden with wisdom and brevity. It's all a pile of codswallop essentially, why? Because we never really live it, we never really embrace the ethos, it is a fight to be a spiritual being, it's bloody hard and ultimately unrewarding because no one else is playing by the same rules... to paraphrase Python here and, I think I can, " They're making it up as they go along". Each religion, be it Christian, Islam, Judaism, Hindu, Bhuddism, Hale-Bopp, they are all amorphous, continually adjusting to the currents of conventional wisdom and changing their message to suit the herd mentality they seek to control. I'm done with them all, if there is a God, he would never have let it get this stupid, he would never have allowed his so called Intelligent Design to become so fucked up, so grossly unGodly. If we can't live by a few simple rules laid down only a few thousand years ago, what does that say about the relevance of religion and the relevance of our God. If we continue to twist and manipulate the words of God for our own self interest then how committed are we to the original intent. The problem is... we have never been committed continually falling off and rehitching ourselves to the spiritual wagon but a few saw religion as a chance to lead and many saw it as a chance to conform, to be a part of something that provided safety and a reason to not have to think, they, in a sense, have resigned from the human race allowing themselves to become vessels and vassals for those who seek only to promote themselves. And that, ultimately, is what drove me away and finally led to my present state... I no longer believe in a God or those who purport to represent it on this good Earth... I am free and if there was a God he would be happy.

Saturday Dog Blog

Meet Hank... Hank's afraid of my dog, Hank doesn't appreciate the sideways humping and puppy fervor of the 'Coop'. Frankly, Hank is a grown up and Cooper is a mere unsophisticated child. But Cooper is growing up Hank and soon he will be able to play the more adult doggy games that you have come to love like, lying down, snuggling next to the ankle, sleeping and eating more than you actually need... yes Cooper will soon join the canine elite and be socially acceptable. Until then, Hank is not interested in Cooper and will insist upon his own space and his own more adult doggy games. Hank is a good guy, just a little set in his ways and moribund beyond belief. All hail Hank...

I'm So Giddy or ISG

When do we ever learn? When do we finally say... I've seen this movie before? In America, in the 21st Century perhaps never. The word leaking out from the ISG is that we should gradually 'draw down' our troops in Iraq and we should engage Iran and Syria in multi-lateral talks. No timetable exists for the draw-down and no incentives exist for Iran and Syria to come to the table and, quite honestly, what do we have to offer, so why should they? We have treated them like just so much shit on our shoe for the last six years but now we need to talk. I seriously believe that we should engage all the hostile parties in the Middle East but in order to do that we need to address the ancient problem - Israel and Palestine - therein lies the root of all our problems, an artificial state in a sea of artificial states... but not just a state, Israel is a state of mind, for us Judeo/Christians, Israel represents a benign, controllable buffer in a Holy Land beseiged by the infidel, for Arabs it is a twisting knife in an open wound. So how do we placate a fertile crescent of hostility while ensuring the continued existence of a predatory, expanding, will-o-the-wisp hegemony? Beats the crap out of me! Perhaps, though, we should have some fresh thinking on this one because what we are experiencing now is quite possibly the worst acid flashback an old drug addled hippy could ever imagine. Seeing Baker front and center, and Bush in complete and utter denial and an administration incapable of sticking to the script is giving me the most uncomfortable case of political reflux one can imagine. Now, these people were supposed to be the 'grown-ups' and under their careful, experienced tutelage America would enter a new golden age of prosperity and global respect... well that went real well... so the grown-ups called in or were forced to accept the 'old-grown-ups' to clean up quite a bit of a mess. But the OGU's were responsible for their own quite a bit of a mess and some of us still remember that and trust them about as far as we could projectile vomit them and, get this, the GU's feel about the same way, still recalcitrant after all these years. So they will ignore the ISG, make up their own shit and carry on as if none of us will notice. As Atrios would sat Na Ga Appen... we're all over them like flies on shit. I don't trust Baker and his Study Group and I have never trusted Bush and his bunch of NeoCon incompetents. We need fresh ideas and some real thinkers... so who are they? - suggestions.

Carville

The nattering classes are all a buzz about James Carville's somewhat puzzling personal condemnation of Gov. Howard Dean's '50 State Strategy'... and indeed the good Governor himself. Perhaps that derives from the fact that they, like Mr. Carville, don't really understand it and are therefore laboring under a weighty dillusion and convincing only themselves. The 50 State Strategy as I see it is a long term answer to the Republican machine built in the early eighties and late nineties which ultimately delivered them the House and Senate in '94. It was a grass roots operation that ignored, in fact abhorred, DC insiders and instead focused on the localized mobilization of a disenfranchised heretofore ignored, but large, voting bloc within this great nation. The aim was to re-take Governorships, State Houses, State Senate seats, Judgeships and gradually manipulate the structure and plurality in microchosm. They would create the talking points, they would direct the conversation and debate to the topics they felt were the motivational and emotional winners for them. The strategy... 'Start small, think big' worked. Dean is, in my opinion, of the same mind. For too long Democratic DC strategists have held themselves and their mandate in high regard, believing the center was the battleground without ever accepting that their 'base' really meant anything, therefore the base had no seat at the table and no voice within the machinery, culminating in a veritable petry dish of disaffection and a nationally assumed irrelevance. So, for the last 12 years, just enough of the center has , irresolutely and inexplicibly, held for the Republicans through fear and sytematically imposed ignorance. No matter the money, the ad buys and the righteous indignation the DLC and it's centrist ilk spewed forth they failed to bring a victory. '04, enter Dean and his plan... Dean went back to the Democratic roots and glavanized State leadership, he brought them money, realism and groundtroops, reconnected and reestablished the lines of communication between DC leadership and its most fervent supporters, empowered the grassroots and the netroots and began the much needed reformation of the Democratic groundgame. His plan was not derived from a need for immediate success but, much like the Republican scheme, had a long term goal, change the dialogue (The war in Iraq is unpopular, a need for the separation of Church and State is widely accepted, people are being left behind, the need for some kind of socialized medicine has become apparent, Corporations cannot run amok and must be overseen, the Constitution must not be interpreted as the executive branch sees fit, international treaties are not 'quaint'... all big issues) excite the base, motivate. (I still believe that Dean was as suprised as everybody else at the overwhelming success of the Democrats in the mid-terms but it truly was a referendum on Iraq and the mood of the American people had been severely misjudged by the WH and Republicans nationwide.) Therefore, he was not willing to wade in at the last minute on individual races with DNC $$$$'s because that was not the plan - '08 and '10 and beyond were his targets and should remain so, unlike the DLC and Carville, this is not about instant gratification and personal benefaction, it's about our party's future health and power, without power we can not create policy. As a by-note, it has also been proven, with a majority of those races, it would not have mattered much if we had thrown everything we had at them we would still have lost. So Carville, in the best interests of the party he supposedly loves, slightly more than himself and all those Ad $$$$'s, should STFU and keep his Rahm lust to himself.

Veterans Day - 2006

Peace
Now, God be thanked Who has matched us with His hour,
And caught our youth, and wakened us from sleeping,
With hand made sure, clear eye, and sharpened power,
To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping,
Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary,
Leave the sick hearts that honour could not move,
And half-men, and their dirty songs and dreary,
And all the little emptiness of love!
Oh! we, who have known shame, we have found release there,
Where there's no ill, no grief, but sleep has mending,
Naught broken save this body, lost but breath;
Nothing to shake the laughing heart's long peace there
But only agony, and that has ending;
And the worst friend and enemy is but Death. Offered Without Comment - Rupert Brooke 1914

Who the F***?

I've been reading a lot lately... books even, aint that quaint... I suppose it has distracted me from writing but sometimes the stuff out there is just so good it leaves me speechless. Billmon has been on fire lately and soothes my savage breast, Atta J. Turk makes me laugh and cry, he is a true American, he cares about his country more than most and remains unafraid and uncompromising. Professor Alterman has found a new, more appropriate home away from the compliant and conniving corporate Bush enablers of MSNBC, he is my blogfather in the sense that he woke me up to the mendacity, hubris and ignorance of this administration. Fear also has no home here, here or here. They are all remarkable in their persistance, relevance and reliability meaning, they actually fact check and research their material, which is not always the case with traditional media. DKos, MyDD and FDL have been a constant comfort for me the last few years, I just require honestly presented information, no BS and they provide that... I don't consider any of the above mentioned to be extreme, they may be construed as such by the traditional medias and by right wing froth mouths intent on polluting the world with misinformation and innuendo but, if you read a DKos or Atrios or Billmon on a regular basis you find wit, wisdom, insight and positivism... something we all need and should aspire to in these dark days. I have pretty much eschewed the main stream forms of information dissemination and rely, pretty much, on alternative media sources for objective, reliable news reporting. Is this 'modern' or just a reaction to 'conglomonewsspeak' irrelevance? Discuss... Art by Peter Bruegel (The Elder) Philosopher-Artist.

The American Inquisition

This post may be a little incoherent at times but, that is how I feel... I feel dislocated, confused, agitated and depressed. I never thought I would see the day that torture and what constitutes it, what defines it would be debated as a means to passing a law to institutionalize it. It boggles the mind that our congress would even contemplate such legislation never mind conceive an alternative bill that may appear more palatable to their delicate dispositions. I understand that we are in trying times, mostly self-imposed, but trying times all the same. We lost close to 3,000 innocent people a few years ago and approach the three thousand milestone in Iraq this year. We have young men and women out there, fighting and dying in a quagmire and we must protect them anyway we can but, we have just put them in further danger, maybe not in Iraq but in the next battlefield of our choosing or maybe not in a battlefield at all and perhaps not even a soldier... we have endangered all Americans throughout the world, we have conspired to relinquish any shred of decency or credibility we have managed to maintain through this trying time that may have prevented a terrorist or a regime or non-compliant government to restrain themselves when confronted with the capture and detention of an American subject. If we think that terrorists have acted like animals in the past, think what they may be capable of now armed with our own belligerent attitude towards torture and interrogation. This is not even an argument about moral high grounds or ethical standards, it is black and white... Americans do not torture period. There is absolutely no evidence that torture has ever provided this nation or any other nation any substantive material that could effect the outcome of a real or perceived threat to its well being. Torture may have proved useful in the pursuit of witches (see: midwives) or Catholic heretics (see: Protestant Reformation) but as a tool of credible information gathering its purported success is risible... By its very definition, it is a tool of coersion, used by despots to gain confessions from political, religious or familial opponents, once again real or perceived. That this administration wishes to codify and thus legalize extreme forms of 'aggressive interogation' actuates their fall from marginalized ideologues to all out tyrants. That they acted only because the CIA and Army refused to continue these techniques until they were sure that they could not be prosecuted for war crimes, of which they surely knew they were guilty of by any definition of the Geneva Conventions and our own Statutes, is a remarkably damning idictment of how low they have sunk. And that this Administration has had to force through a bill that ultimately saves their own skins from future prosecution because by ordering these techniques in the first place they are guilty of the same crimes, we know they know their actions are criminal and punishable by all international agreements and laws. That they are extracating themselves from the same procedures and proceedings that they will deny entirely to 'enemy combatants' that they and they alone determine provides sufficient evidence that they consider themselves above not only international law but the laws of this land that 140,000 men and women now fight for. Their conceit is unbridaled, their arrogance beyond contempt. We, the American people, must abide by the laws passed down to us from generation to generation, good laws that are easy to abide by and grant us freedom from tyranny and oppression, laws enacted by reasonable men to ensure our liberty and unfettered pursuit of happiness. Our current government considers some of these hard fought for laws inconvenient and even 'quaint', they will circumvent the ones they see as encumbering them and create new laws to save their hides... this is not government, it is totalitarianism.

Republican Zeit-Geist Revisited

I have a friend, he's a good friend... personable, bright, gracious and generous. We have dinner together, alone or with our respective families. We talk sport, art, science and occassionally politics. He's a Republican... I am not. Recently he has been emoting right and proper about all the successes this administration has had over the years and is becoming damn right vociferous even, one could say, shrill about it all. He has been sending me links to all the usual Right Wing RNC Talking Points regurgitators including, of all people, Howie Kurtz to prove his veracity and well read credentials. I have read a few, truth be told, but found the going a little tough, indigestible almost, too many unsubstantiated facts, hearsay, innuendo and obfuscation. Let's face it, armed with a good vocabulary, a few years incubation in an obscure conservative petri dish, a multimedia interface linked directly the WH Press Office and any totalitarian nut job can become a recognized pundit. There is no mystery to this game I'm afraid, the internet has seen to that. Because the dialogue was becoming so heated I have yet to respond to his last missive. He informed me, in no uncertain terms, that Valerie Plame and her husband engineered the entire Plamegate embroglio, from her sending "Ambassador" Wilson on his Niger expedition, to his rebuttal in the Times Op-Ed, to the fact that Wilson's report differed vastly to his Op-Ed piece, to the now direct correllation between the civil suit and the release of her book to the fact that there was no crime committed by this administration in the release of her name to the press etc, etc, etc. Now that's what I call a plan, the Wilson's may go down as the most consumate of grifters, devising a scheme so perfect in it's conception and execution that it takes your breath away. It's tentacles reaching in to the very depths of the Italian Secret Service, across continents, through the inboxes and outboxes of Parliaments and Administrations and finally into the State of The Nation Speech itself. Cunning, very cunning... funny how they haven't been charged with anything though, aint it? His next target was Iraq... where apparently the USA has acheived complete victory and I mean complete victory. Everyone has surrendered their arms and has gone back home to tend their flocks and fields. The Middle East has learned a valuable lesson about American might and will. Freedom and Liberty those bastions of Western Civilization have weilded their mighty swords and brought to an end the age of tyrrany. Who's writing this stuff anyway Hans Christian 'bloody' Andersen... the carnage is just effing unreal and unrelenting day after bloody day, what planet are some of these right wing dictocrats on anyway, certainly not the third one from the sun, here it's a complete mess, the Middle East is in complete turmoil with the threat of all out war between Israel and her disenfranchised neighbors all too real. Where is the logic? The smarts? The Policy, any Policy? We sent Condi, phew! Everything will be fine now... she'll tickle those ivories and give them that winning, confident smile and everything will stabilize, you watch... I did, it got worse and she is, quite frankly, the worst SoS this country has ever foisted on a poor, unsuspecting world. I could go on... I think I refered to this administration as a bunch of crooks and hoodlums who had carved off every good piece of meat left on the bones of this once proud country, that they had robbed the poor and the middle class and had always intended to do so, they like their workers starved and compliant. They will continue to deregulate in the middle of the night, they will pass laws that Congress has not had time to read, they will promote out of the box blithering idiots into positions that require experience, knowledge and forethought, they will hide behind a compliant SCOTUS and a 'wind-up' AG, they will continue to call all those who oppose them unpatriotic and friends to the terrorists and they will never, ever admit that they made any mistakes. And that, my dear reader, is just this week.

Dem Blues

Now, this boy may have the worst teeth in the tournament but, he played a hell of a game and perhaps single handedly brought about the inevitable Spanish demise. I thought the Spaniards would go out in the next round having enough talent to dismiss the French aging aristos, hey, my bad... looks like they had one game left in them and I believe this was it. They are playing like ex champs though and you have to give the French begrudging credit for putting on a great display against the most consistently 'bloody awful in a big game team' in history. What is it with the Spanish... ? I loved this team they put on the field, from Puyol, Fabrigas to Raul and Torres, they looked like world beaters. Too Bad. The French will be euthanized against Brazil and rightly so. So we are down to eight. My final four... Germany, Italy, England and Brazil... for all the naysayers out there... every one of these teams will deserve to be there.

Just As An Aside

The nuclear deal with India always had the smell of a failing second term policy initiative hanging around, over and under it. It was a lightweight, almost second rate, decision by what amounts to an administration devoid of foreign policy savvy. They pissed off most of the planet and had to make it look like they had friends somewhere, anywhere... even India. The Indians for their part played us like a fiddle and got everything they desired without having to give up a damn thing. Now, not even reported in the American media we find this. I'm appalled that a democrat even thought this worthy of debate... must be some rather large 'pork' at stake. Please, somebody tell these fatuous assholes that a nuclear deal with India, a country that has not signed on to the NPT, was a political stunt and not even this administration, Cheney withstanding - he just loves to go against the flow don't he - believes this has any legs whatsoever. It was a stunt and a bad one at that... why is anyone voting for it. Shhhheeeesssh!

The Debate

Another unconvincing victory for England...? I think so, but there is a caveat. This England team has not had to stretch it's legs yet and that is reason for hope. Let's look at England so far... in the group stages England faced a tactically challenged Paraguay, they won unconvincingly but pretty much did all they had to, first game... just win. Game 2... T & T were a difficult team, they were obviously bouyed by their draw against Sweden and came in smelling another big scalp, England controlled them and eventually beat them 2-0. Was it a good game for England? No, but it didn't have to be, they suffocated T & T, kept a clean sheet and through the three points advanced. Game 3 against Sweden, England probably played their best soccer of the tournament so far in the first half. It was a statement to a scrappy, overacheiving Sweden side that we can beat you but you will not beat us. The second half England cruised, the Swedes got back into it but never really looked like beating England. The Ecuador game was a debacle, Ecuador were a joke and looked like a team of fricking amateurs. England were never seriously threatened except for the attempt on goal so brilliantly denied by Ashley Cole, but they played with one up front and therefore limited their own chances against a side they should have clobbered. So, apart from the second half of the Sweden game this England side has not been tested, they have not had to raise their game. The next round will be different and hopefully with the increase in pressure England will increase their intensity, it is my belief that they will... England will beat Portugal. As for Beckham, enough already, we live in an era of specialist players and Beckham is perhaps, arguably, the ultimate specialist, do I want him in my team, a team where pace, work-rate and a direct approach to goal are the keys to success, you're damn right I do. When all else fails, I want the best set piece finisher in the business, his name is David Beckham.

It's only a game

The only African representative in the last 16... hhhmmm! I thought the game was developing incrementally on the continent? I have noticed a marked difference in how the African nations are now and how they were oh, say 12 years ago, the swashbuckling style has been replaced by a more controlled possession game... it may be an evolution for African soccer but all that style acheives is that you become easier to beat for the European and South American teams who have been playing that game for over half a century. It is something they are used to and can tactically break it down if the opposing team has inferior manpower. I think that is one of the issues for Africa to overcome, do they play us at our game and be suseptable to superior players or return to their old style where practically anything could happen at any given time any where on the pitch. It's hard to counter that as European and South American sides found to their dismay. Another problem is that there are now so many African players playing for European clubs who, I am sure, curb their enthusiasm and impetuousness. Shame really, I liked some of those old African sides, not because of some condescending Western European geshtalt, but because I liked to watch a game break open and see great players forced to be great by an opposition who didn't care two hoots if your name was Zico, Maldini, Plattini or Gascoine, they came here to play football... Africa style!!! I think Ghana will have a terrible time against Brazil who are starting to rev the engine. As for the rest of the draw, only England face South American opposition... I'll admit, I'm uncomfortable with this draw, I don't like teams that are willing to lose 3-0 just to rest some of their players, it shows a lack of ambition and smugness, I'll pick England to win but I think it will be a bloodbath. Sweden v Germany, too Northern European for my taste... Germany wins, what a shocker. I think both Portugal and Italy will get through but if there is an upset Italy v Australia could be the one. Spain v France could be another bloodbath with Spain edging it. Switzerland v Ukraine... watch it, through sheer dumb luck it may be the game of the round - ohhh! Ukraine wins it. There that's it we will be down to eight.

All The Usual Cliches Apply

Crikey Bruce!!!! You'd think the guy had just scored the most important goal in Austalian soccer history... or sumpthink! Got to hand it to the Antipodeans here though, cracking game... lots of goals, action, tension, drama. And why the eff not, this is a pretty good Aussie club with lots of talent and that irrepressible Aussie cockiness, they deserved the draw, against an embarrased Croatian outfit and a birth in the final sixteen.... good on ya mates! Personally, I'm still smarting over my hapless Czechs, they were my sleeper team, my win-win, gosh darn it. I suppose I have to talk about the US Soccer Team, I'm sad to see them go and really thought they had a chance to carry on, it's an old maxim about golf I think... something about not being able to win a championship on Saturday but you sure can lose one. I think the US was done after Game 1, it's really hard to recover when you only have three games to play, especially at this level of competition, and when you lose game one, so convincingly, it's especially hard to recover. It is hard to believe that the US was caught so flat footed but I blame Arena, you have to have your team up for game 1, throw everything you have out there and be damned. I know I have championed caution in the first round, but every team threw their best eleven out there, if they had them, and played a strong game either offensively or defensively. I just don't think that, against the Czechs, we had our best eleven out there and for that I blame Arena, I still think the lad from New England should have been selected, I like his game and he is a proven goalscorer with enough experience for this level of competition. I probably would have taken Adu as well, blooded him, if he is the future... then let it be now. So we've got some games coming up... Argentina v Netherlands is a classic in waiting. I'll pick my last eight tomorrow... stay tuned!

How The Crouch Stole Christmas

Despite their best efforts England could only manage a draw against the yellow peril that is Sweden. England allowed what is for the most part a mediocre team room to play in the second half after making Sweden look very average in the first session. Maybe England took their foot off the pedal a little... they only had to draw and apart from a five minute golden period in the second half Sweden never looked likely to actually beat England. Cole had a great game, the back four was fairly solid except from the brain freeze at the end which allowed Sweden the tie, it really should have been Robinson's ball, he really looked like a 26 year old on the play. The England midfield played allright, it wasn't really a midfield game what with eleven Englishmen on the field and half the Swedish team playing in the EPL, it kind of looked like a competitive football game you could catch on any given Saturday all over the playing fields of England. The Swedes tend to be pretty lucky against England, I think it might be a case of England never really taking the Swedes seriously which is easy to do considering they have never won a damn thing. As for my pet peave, the tall one is wasting someone elses air-space as far as I'm concerned. I think everyone was looking forward to Rooney and Owen and instead we got more of the inept Crouch on crutches show. The Swedes must have been very happy to see Owen go down so early, it pretty much gave the back four the night off, Crouch is so easy to mark and take out of a game that they never had to worry about penetration. You could almost see the England team make a concious effort to start taking long shots, Cole, Lampard even Rooney all joined the shoot from 30 yards club, I think they have no confidence in Crouch to either lay the ball off usefully or get a decent shot on goal, he was completely ineffectual in this game and Sven has to consider using someone else up front with Rooney or perhaps Owens injury is not as bad as it looked... here's hoping. If I have to watch Crouch through another 90 minutes I swear, my TV not make it through the game. Ecuador 0 - 3 Germany, I'm still not a believer as far as Germany goes but this was a nice result from a game I thought Germany might find very difficult. It seems a lot of the South American sides, Brazil withstanding, look great against inferior opposition only to be crushed by a competitive team. Germany are certainly competitive if just a tad young.

Weekly Rap

Merde.....!!! Those French huh? I really can't explain it... it's beyond credibility but the French really are awful. I like the Koreans, don't get me wrong, but France are showing what can happen to a team, full of star players and formidable and recently acquired reputation, when they have no heart, no imagination and no guts. Team USA on the other hand... showed that a team with a basic lack of imagination and no real tactical plan but tons of guts and heart can achieve the impossible despite all the referees efforts to deny them the deserved outcome. They were splendid and a joy to watch and what about the fans? That was perhaps the most rousing, awe inspiring rendition of the national anthem I have ever witnessed, considering where it took place and the USA's current political standing in the world, it actually made me feel good about the US again... loud and proud, well done fans! In the grand scheme of things, the World Cup is living up to it's billing. It has been thrilling so far with very few ho-hum games, a couple of yawners but for the most part excellent. The stadiums are full and the fans excited, there has been very little hooliganism - good - and little if no trouble in the stands. I thought the second round of games would sort out the men from the boys but some of the boys are just not willing to leave this world stage yet... you get a hard earned point, you sneak a win... suddenly you have a sniff. Speaking of sniffs, I wouldn't like to be Czech right now, my pick to win it all looked decidedly bland the other day and thoroughly deserved to be run over by a very plucky Ghana club. Spain are running roughshod over Tunisia right now after a veritably queezy first half, I still can't get my head around this Spanish side... so much talent, so likely to lose in the next round.

France... France... France

When the bloated, aging, French soccer aristocracy have forgotten how to play the beautiful game... it's time for a revolution mon amie. This was an awful performance from the French but since '98 what have they done? I'll tell you... not effing much. It is time for French soccer to move on from the legacy group and find a new identity, I like French soccer and think they deserve their place at the top table, but they have to start developing some fresh talent if they ever want to go further than the first round. Today's display was pretty dull. England starting to look better all the time eh? Brazil... take away all the circus crap and they look like a hard working blue collar team, this is the most unexciting Brazilian team I can remember, still, lots of hard work and effort, except for Ronaldo, will win you a few games. Czech republic are looking like favorites now, in my book... pace, skill, imagination they have it all, it really depends on Koller's injury, they are definitely less threatening without him in the line-up. The next round of games is going to be really interesting and I think all the armchair pundits will be selecting like crazy after this next round... me too!!!

Oh! Deary Me...

I must admit I didn't see the game, I really wanted to, just circumstances prevented me from being able to sit my ass down in front of the TV. Now, I personally expected a close game, I thought the Czechs would win but it would be close and the fact that the US would give a good account of themselves against the second best team in the world would propel them into a classic against the Azzurri. My Bad! Team USA didn't even turn up... I watched the highlights and frankly, they were effing awful. They seemed to have no strategy as to how to play your opening game in the World Cup, admittedly the Czechs were going to be a handful and will continue to be so throughout the tournament but, you have to have a effing game plan to counter these teams. Team USA had nothing... nothing I tell you, fricking Angola looked more organized. USA has some real talent and I mean that, real talent but, the talent has to show up... Landon Donovan is a liability, the guy is so inconsistent it boggles the mind and yet he is so lauded in this country, like he's the second coming of Pele or something. The guy has no instinct for the game at this level, he couldn't cut a German club team, so why do we expect so much from him in Germany '06? I still think Arena is over-rated, a good organizer but not a strategic thinker on a game by game basis...! Hey, I could be wrong!

Tag Drei

So the general opinion of the England win against Paraguay, especially from the Yankee pundits on ABC and ESPN Deux, is that they were boring and lacked imagination or any creative spark. This is from the same people, mind you, who called Sweden "The high scoring Swedes", I kid you not, Sweden have scored one goal in their last seven games...! As for England, they have performed no worse and no better than the other favored teams so far. Argentina had a nice first half but if Crespo is your number 9 forget it, I don't care how good Requelme is... Crespo is not the answer, the second half was more representative of how Argentina will perform in this World Cup, let's face it... unlike in past world cups they lack that creative cheat they really need to win a big game. Portugal looked OK today, but they do seem a little small, a big physical side with some smarts - unlike Angola - will give them fits. Having said all this, it is the first round of the group stage and a win is important as shown by the refusal of the bigger clubs - see Holland - to lose no matter how ugly they looked.

The World Cup is Everything but...

There happens to be all kinds of crap going on right now... prisoners commiting suicide at Gitmo, apparently in an attempt to create some good PR for the Taliban, thanks for that quote General Cretin. The Taliban meanwhile, good PR or not, have regrouped and are now considered by our military as an insurgent force. We got Zarqawi, good. His own people sold him out... bad. We've turned another corner in Iraq, good. That's now twelve corners since this administration started this mess, now if we were playing Monopoly, and we might be for all I know, we would have gone round the board three times and hit every piece of property on it... bad. Not even a get out of jail free card. Iran continues to toy with us like we were her effing bitch and Europe, yeah cheers, thanks a lot... fer nuttin. One classic quote on Atrios... Larry Johnson on the 'Bush Era' "I wish we were making all this crap up".... too funny, too sad! Hey, it's Sunday, go read a good newspaper. Learn something, or go on one of the blogs I have links to, they are informative and they care...?

England 1 - 0 Paraguay

Your classic World Cup opening match for England, nothing fancy, get the early lead and start poaching, sit back and see what happens. Not inspiring, I'll admit, but this is the world cup and to lose your opening game, well, it can be devastating. Now to my thoughts... Crouch was awful, always on the wrong side of his man and the ball, hence the gazzillion free kicks he gave away. He is not my favorite player and if truth be told I don't think he is a World Cup caliber player... he looks very naive out there, for a 6'-7" man to be consistantly out-jumped and out-thought by the Paraguayans, as good as their back four were, is a scandal. The English back four was solid, although I think Ashley Cole still lacks match fitness and any semblance of a brain, he practically gave the ball away every time he had possession and was nearly punished severely once. Gerrard played well and kept his composure, he is maturing into a very fine player. Lampard and Cole are just a dynamic combo in midfield and I see great things from both of them especially Lampard who just oozes class. As for the Paraguayans... not a bad outing, not very creative though for a South American team. I fancy them against Sweden who for all the world look like a team without a clue. The longer this match with T & T goes on the worse it will get for Sweden... at least that's what I think.

World Cup - Tag Eins

So Germany beat Costa Rica 4-2. This is an interesting score, not that Germany scored four goals but that they conceded two. This is Costa Rica after all, not exactly a powerhouse of world soccer, now they are there and you have to give them that, but Costa Rica are a third world soccer power and Germany should have beaten them perhaps by a score of 4-0. Germany going forward and scoring goals is OK, Klose is a nice player, not Gert Muller, or Klinsman but a nice player none the less. But to concede two goals to Costa Rica is a little worrisome. Fast and loose is not Germany's style and against a stronger opponent they will not have the room they had up front today which in turn will increase the pressure on the defence and, if they let in two against Costa Rica, I would be concerned. Now watching the Poland-Ecuador tilt, talk about contrasting styles... but this is what makes the World Cup so remarkable... Northern Europe against South America, Africa against Asia, wow... Two-Nil Ecuador, beautiful goal... beautiful game... gotta go watch the last ten minutes.