In More Serious News...

God and Mrs. God arrive in LA.

Friday Random 1

Condi... ments

So Secretary Rice breaks off from her latest shopping spree to throw cold water on the finally serious debate in Congress by spouting her usual demented bromides but, this one caught me completely off-guard considering the reports I've been reading:

Defending Baghdad's progress, Rice credited the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki with reducing sectarian divisions within Iraq's problem-plagued security forces.

"We shouldn't dismiss as inconsequential what they've achieved in this period of time: bringing security forces to the fight -- yes, security forces that still need a lot of help -- but security forces beginning to turn the tide against sectarian violence because they're acting in a less sectarian way," she told ABC.

Not only is this complete Orwellian double-speak, it is also completely unfounded and if this is al-Maliki's doing I'd be completely suprised.

The Iraqi forces are under the direct command of US forces, if any one body has exerted pressure on the sectarian elements within the Iraqi army, that body would be the US military command in Iraq not al-Maliki bunkered down in the green zone incapable of even assembling a quorum within his own parliament.

This womans grasp of the situation is risible. They only put Condi out there because she is the least despised person in this entire administration and that is mainly through her perpetual twin gifts of remaining reasonably well turned out whilst remaining 'mostly' irrelevant.

Christians And Patriots

The ignorance, intolerance and racsism of these people knows no bounds. They are neither Christian nor Patriotic merely a bunch of demented, brainwashed pissants who's philosophical, historical and theological knowledge could be contained in an egg cup.

What is the next step for these angry and deluded people? Will they start shooting at invited, non-christian guests of Congress?

The mind truly boggles at the inanity of this ilks 'message'.

Peeling The Onion

The first salvo's for change are being prepared for Mr. Brown's impending state visit to the US.

This will be a very different 'special relationship' with the UK leaning more and more toward it's European partners and less and less toward the Infected States of America.

Brown has no choice but to distance himself from the Blair legacy of Bush appeasement, should be an interesting month.

Quality Snark

Josh Marshall snarks at the McCain and Rudy camps... did I say camp, too funny!

Diplomacy

With the Middle East a cauldron of dissaffection, war, terrorism and potential defeat for American Foreign Policy initiatives, it's comforting to know that Condi is all over it like white on rice, so to speak.

Her travel itinary for 2007 as published at the State Dept. Site:

Trips by Date



June 23-26: France (7,662 miles)
June 4: Panama (4,118 miles)
May 29 – June 1: Europe (9,775 miles)
May 13-16 Russia (9,964 miles)
May 1-4: Egypt (12,126 miles)
April 25-27:Norway (7,751miles)
March 23-27:Middle East (12,963 miles)
March 8-14: Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala, and Mexico (11,875 miles)
Feb. 23: Canada (910 miles)
Feb. 16-22: Middle East and Europe (12,796 miles)
Jan. 24-26: Europe (7,851 miles)
Jan. 12-19: Middle East and Europe (14,374 miles)

That would make it 8 shopping trips to Europe, South America and Canada and 4 working vacations to the Middle East followed by a further 2 quick shopping trips to Europe (just to decompress, you know how stressful the ME is!).

You know, we pay her for this.

Over There

Our staunchest ally, historically and militarily but by no means politically anymore, reals from successive waves of 'terrorism related incidents' as pissed off arabs, some al qaeda 'inspired' others just plain old pissed off iraqis and arabist nationalist exert pressure on the newly minted Brown primacy.

The timing of all this couldn't come at a more opportune time for the PM and his parties flagging support for the 'WiI' and his nations now open hostility toward the Bush administration and it's failed policies.

I think Mr. Brown will be looking for a way out very soon, afterall one of the main pillars of the Bush doctrine was to fight them over there so we would not have to fight them over here. For the UK, much like the WMD, al qaeda-Iraq cooperation and mushroom clouds, fighting them over there rings just a little hollow when the headlines every day elude to homegrown and foreign instigated UK terror plots on the homeland.

Couple this with the increased destabilization of Southern Iraq, Basra in particular, and you have what could appear to be a coordinated attack on the British psyche and it's already waining willingness to continue to participate in this brazen sham of a war.

The fact that the real perpetrators of the crimes against civilization, that got this stupidity started in the first place, remain at-large in the hinterlands of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border has not been lost on the general populace much to the chagrin of the Serious People who through subterfuge, mendacity and propaganda lead us into a war without end with an enemy without a face in a place infested with old antagonisms and resentments we were fully ignorant of. Al qaeda took full advantage of that and reaped the wild wind. We really, really wanted bin Laden and would have condoned any costs and actions in that pursuit, what we got was Hussein and his crippled country, a civil war and a breeding ground for pan-arab hostility.

And the Bush administration wonders why nobody believes in them any more when, it's staggeringly obvious.

Dear Reader...

It's been an incredibly busy period for me... I will be posting soon.

Kurdish Delight

The Kurds appear to be deeply enamored with US sanctioned "Enhanced Interrogation" techniques, secret prisons, Gitmoesque interment and abandonment of the rule of law.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery...

Of course, those commies at Human Rights Watch are not to be trusted, too 'truthy'.

Under The Radar

Been away for a while... meanwhile, this administrations rape of our economy is unabating.

And, the special Saudi envoy to the House of Bush is having difficulty off-loading his US crash pad... (bahk)sheeesh!

The Wolfman joins the AEI... shock, not so much.

The NYT reports on the crisis in Kansas, the BBC also reports on the crisis in Kansas, compare and contrast children.

The Splurge

I love the smell of death in the morning... smells like hubris with just a hint of desperation.

Just Say No

Hopefully, having faced the slings and arrows for the past six years, somebody on Tony's team will tell him, this is a really, really bad idea.

However, given Tony's meglomaniacal thirst for attention, he may just completely ignore them and accept this very high profile yet ultimately thankless task.

I mean, what's two more years of having the sh*t kicked out of you, when compared to all that face time.

Sir Salman

My sensativity button has, strangely enough, been acting up lately. My sanctimony sensors however, have been working fine.

Tasnim Aslam, of Pakistan's Foreign Ministry, told journalists in Islamabad: "Salman Rushdie has been a controversial figure who is known less for his literary contribution and more for his offensive and insulting writing which deeply hurts the sentiments of Muslims all over the world. Conferment of a knighthood on Salman Rushdie shows an utter lack of sensitivity on the part of the British government."
The Independent UK, 6/20/07

I would say to Mr. Aslam that in the west Sir Salman is known more for his literary contributions and less for his offensive and insulting writing.

His accolades include:

James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Fiction)
Arts Council Writers' Award
English-Speaking Union Award
Booker of Bookers or the best novel among the Booker Prize winners for Fiction
Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger
Whitbread Novel Award (twice)
Writers' Guild of Great Britain Award for Children's Fiction
Kurt Tucholsky Prize (Sweden)
Prix Colette (Switzerland)
State Prize for Literature (Austria)
Author of the Year (British Book Awards)
Author of the Year (Germany)
Mantua Prize (Italy)
Premio Grinzane Cavour (Italy)
Hutch Crossword Fiction Prize (India)
India Abroad Lifetime Achievement Award (USA)
Outstanding Lifetime Achievement in Cultural Humanism (Harvard University)
Aristeion Prize (European Union)

That a few 'government sanctioned' rent-a-crowd crazies hit the streets at any perceived slight against Islam by the west is becoming really tiresome.

Disgusted of Buffalo

I am content that this man will spend the rest of his days rotting in a prison. What I am disgusted about is that the Buffalo news quotes only Dr. Slepians wife in defence of the conviction whilst quoting two, including one convicted of hiding Kopp during his stint on the run, nutjobs defending this idiot of a man.

Kopp’s supporters outside the federal courthouse rejected that theory, calling Kopp a nonviolent man and repeating his assertions that he intended only to wound Slepian so he no longer could perform abortions.

Joan Andrews Bell, a prominent figure in the anti-abortion movement, described herself as a pacifist but said she believed Kopp took a number of steps to avoid killing Slepian and injuring anyone else.

How can you call yourself a pacifist and then defend someone who aimed, shot and killed a highly respected and well liked human being with a high powered rifle. The contadiction is staggering, the logic... manifestly lacking.

Couldn't Resist...

Most under-rated band evah...?

Cuckoo

Many of the Old World species and some New World species are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other birds.
The Cuckoo

Bloomberg leaves the GOP but, for most of us, he was only in it for the opportunities it afforded him. It would be hard for me to vote for someone who's political ambition transcends their political convictions. Bloomberg, although a fair administrator, lacks a clearly defined set of principles that would allow me to actually figure him out. He brings to the table only an obscured picture of a man who will feather whatever politically expedient nest will further his own designs.

I suppose, in this day and age, those traits could be construed as the political norm, a necessary skill set that all the leading candidates have displayed or utilized at one time or another but, with the leading democratic candidates I at least can find common ground with most of their positions, with Bloomberg, I would if I could, but I can't.

Brownshirt

Let's just put this out there, see how it flies, we can always disavow ourselves later but, the slur is now in the public domain and that is just how we want it.

How very Christian of them.

Slammer Libby

I'm not one to gloat, I genuinely feel that Scoot committed a somewhat honorable, if misguided and ultimately criminal, act. My problem is with the cabal's peculiar and specific code of honor. And how criticism, of any kind, addles their response mechanisms. If this shiny gem of a scandal proves anything, it proves that this was a case of classic over reaction to a situation where, of all things, vengeance, pay-back, political assassination, call it what you will was unnecessary. That they went to such lengths to discredit one of their own and then attempted to cover up and remove themselves from the process by means of denial, obfuscation and deceit speaks volumes about this administrations immaturity and their over-simplistic, flawed decision making process.

That Scooter was willing to lie to and obstruct an FBI investigation with the express intent of protecting his bosses from having to tell the truth is ludicrously juvenile thinking. Unfortunately this kind of thinking is rampant in the Bush administration, where a twisted loyalty system governs over logic and principle. That loyalty only goes so far though because, ultimately their code of honor is based on the singular act of self preservation. As with the Gonzalez situation, they allow this poor, out-of-his-depth, hack to twist in the wind in order to protect the inner circle.

What motivates these second tier dispensibles to such blind loyalty is beyond me. They will eventually and inevitably be tossed aside as circumstances dictate and most probably be ridiculed all the way out by party members, right wing pundits and wingnuttia in general. That kind of humiliation must be tough even for a dyed in the wool neocon apparatchik to take but, take it they do. There must be some big golden parachutes out there in repugland.

But Scooter now makes the ultimate sacrifice, he will go to jail, his humiliation complete and sweeping and for what? To protect the men who allowed him to go through this ordeal, who's orders he was undertaking, who watch from the sidelines, silent as his life and career go down the toilet. That to me is not loyalty, it's idiocy, it's stark, raving madness. Pardon or no pardon, Scooter's reputation can never be rehabilitated, he will always be associated with scandal, his image etched into the pantheon of National Enquirer front pages, poor bugger! Telling the truth, though apparently inconceivable, would have made for very different headlines.

Miss-iles

The US is still intent on deployment of it's European missile shield and NATO has given its guarded approval of the scheme. It's hardly surprising that NATO would get behind this, they are, after all, an extension of the US military industrial complex only with a different name.

That the missile shield is still unproven technology, costs a bloody awful amount of money and is designed to protect Europe from threats that don't even exist, was not mentioned.