Lower Stories: Brandon in Baghdad
Brandon had a troubled adolescence. He was always in trouble and partied too much. He fought with his bipolar stepfather, and his mother would stop the ruckus by calling the police. Brandon barely graduated from high school.
He joined the Marines and was assigned to a mortar squad. Brandon carried the mortar. When he got to Iraq his job was changed to military intelligence, where he worked on encryption.
Brandon came home this summer and can’t wait for his next deployment. It will be in Afghanistan. He’s looking forward to killing someone there.
It Wasn’t the Surge That Did the Trick
…it was ethnic cleansing.
“Our findings suggest that the surge has had no observable effect, except insofar as it has helped to provide a seal of approval for a process of ethno-sectarian neighborhood homogenization that is now largely achieved,” Agnew’s team wrote in their report.
I don’t suppose McCain will be mentioning this when he takes credit for backing the surge.
Nothing Left to Lose…Except….
Pakistani public opinion was already incensed by the U.S. airstrikes into its territory, which have intensified over the last few weeks and have killed civilians as well as militants. That turned to uproar after the first ground assault by U.S. commandos onto its soil earlier this month, in South Waziristan, another part of the tribal territory that runs along the Afghan border. The country was stunned over a New York Times report this week President Bush had secretly authorized the new policy of incursions into Pakistan in July.
It’s just an outrage (sadly one of many) that this administration, in its lame last days, would risk so much for the potential feather of a big “kill” that would benefit McCain and a bankrupt party. There are new people running Pakistan, and what a wonderful start we are getting at enlisting their help. I guess Bush hasn’t heard that they are a nuclear power, and this makes “kick ass and take names later” diplomacy much more dangerous. I recall Republicans decrying Obama’s notion of going into Pakistan to get Bin Laden–but of course Obama’s comment referred to knowing exactly where Bin Laden was, taking him out, and then smoothing the ruffled feathers–not just generally going in whenever for a look-see and blowing up a bunch of crap up without achieving much.
Catering the Rapture
Special Report — I think about food too much. I know I do. I acquired the tendency honestly.
When I was a little critter growing up in the compound, my mother elected herself nutritionist for our entire breakaway republic. There’s no telling what Mom would have achieved as Dietician-General if our fifty-two member group had seceded from the United States.
North Korean Propaganda Posters
Click the picture for more (via kottke)
I Told You So What
There I was last weekend, trying on my fancy clothes for the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions, when the news crackled in over the shortwave: Russia had invaded Georgia. My first thought was, “Clever bastards; I always thought they would come in through Florida.” My second thought was, “What took them so long?”
I suppose the defenders’ resistance has been fierce — everyone in that part of the U.S. is heavily armed — but those folks are going to need some help. Maybe we should airlift a couple million pounds of ground beef into the combat zone. That will stop those Bolsheviks in their tracks. E. coli O157:H7 or litigation, whatever it takes. There are almost 1.4 million lawyers in metropolitan Atlanta. Bloody stools and compensatory damages.
Dear Clusterflock
I’d rather be waterboarded than _________.
a couple headlines from today’s news
U.S. currency has the highest traces of cocaine of any currency in the world and the Bush administration had the CIA forge a letter linking Iraq and Al Qaeda.
My mom, the iPod and genericide
My mom, quite unintentionally, is waging a one woman genericide war on the iPod. Not only does she refer to all media players as iPods but she calls ANY small electronic gadget an iPod. Cellphones, PDA’s, calculators and remote controls are all iPods as far as she is concerned.
Big Waves
This news line just caught my attention: “Research finds deadly rogue waves can form from nothing.” Doesn’t this sound like a decidedly unscientific way to say this? A little philosophy is in order, perhaps. Also, it was not a big surprise that the issue of how this knowledge might be used to produce a weapon appears just a few lines into the article:
Deadly rogue waves 100 feet tall or higher could suddenly rise seemingly out of nowhere from the ocean, research now reveals.
Understanding how such monstrous waves form could lead to ways to predict when they might emerge or, potentially, even drive them at enemy vessels, scientists added.
Wonder who paid for that research?
A Cold-War (Military Industrial) Joke
Okay, so there’s this US Air Force base, and the general in command is a nutcase obsessed with the commie threat against our precious bodily fluids. And, acting on his own authority, he just up and orders bombers to the Soviet Union absent any provocation. This is serious shit. You can imagine the possibilities. Everything is at sixes and sevens, and the fate of the world is at stake. The base is incommunicado, so the President goes so far as to order US army troops to attack the base, even though the guys on the base are “our boys”, and to put the commander in touch. All hell breaks loose.
How Does Terrorism End?
rare metal incites conflict
Coltan, an unrefined metallic ore used in Playstations and other electronic devices, has incited violent conflict in the Congo.
After processing, coltan turns into a powder called tantalum, which is used extensively in a wealth of western electronic devices including cell phones, computers and, of course, game consoles.
Allegedly, the demand for coltan prompted Rwandan military groups and western mining companies to plunder hundreds of millions of dollars worth of the rare metal, often by forcing prisoners-of-war and even children to work in the country’s coltan mines.
“Kids in Congo were being sent down mines to die so that kids in Europe and America could kill imaginary aliens in their living rooms,” said Ex-British Parliament Member Oona King.
Pentagon Ends Tactical Fighter Leasing Program
Ordnance leasing became popular during the military boom years of the Eighties and early Nineties, thanks to turmoil in war-torn regions like Lebanon, Serbia, and Detroit. This strife created an unrealistic demand for capable weapons of mass destruction — a demand that has ultimately led to today’s unsustainably poor depreciation and low used-warhead resale values.
McCain Advocates Phil Gramm Surge
“My friends — and I truly think of all of you as friends — listen up,” Mr. McCain told supporters and press. “The U.S. will withdraw from Iraq only after victory is achieved. We will achieve that victory by pounding the terrorists as if they are economical cuts of flank steak.”
“I have the military and foreign policy experience to make statements like that,” he continued in a strident, nasally voice, “even if I clearly can’t tell the difference between a Shiite and a Sunni.”
The Motorcycle I Rode Halfway Across the Country
In this picture it’s 1970, and I had just turned 17. The motorcycle is a Honda 450. I was 15 when I rode it from Dallas to California, through the southwest and into the northwest and back again.
Iran Launches Oil Barrels into Persian Gulf
Tehran, Iran — The global petroleum market threw up a little in its throat Thursday as Iran commenced a second consecutive day of test firing oil-filled surface-to-surface missiles.
Determined to prove its courage, fortitude, and earnest resistance to common sense, the radical Islamic republic launched an estimated five hundred fully laden medium- and short-range Shahab-3, Scud-C, and Hoot missiles into the Straits of Hormuz, gateway to 40% of the world’s fuel supply.
An Alternate Future
There will be no War Between the Vampires and the Zombies, as predicted in the apocalyptic clusterflock post Historic Downtown Greenville (Ohio).
The coming War of Distinctive Destinations will instead pit Historic Downtown Greenville (Ohio) against Galena (Illinois).
Historic Downtown Greenville (Ohio)
Ooh. Vampires have already established themselves in Historic Downtown Greenville (Ohio), where “shoppers enjoy friendly store-keepers (some five generations old)”. You just know those ancient store-keepers are Un-Dead.
The climactic battle of the War Between the Vampires and the Zombies will be fought in Historic Downtown Greenville (Ohio).
Christopher Hitchens Describes Being Waterboarded
At last, a high profile figure has submitted to being waterboarded. It’s no surprise to me that it was Christopher Hitchens. Dick Cheney, who insists that this is not a form of torture, doesn’t have the guts.
See the Vanity Fair video, with a link to Hitchens’s related article, here.
North Korea Better Off with Nuclear Reactors
An Editorial — Bitterness, disagreement, and animosity characterize U.S.-North Korea relations, but the long decades of name calling and saber rattling could be nearing an end.
President George W. Bush formally removed North Korea from America’s list of regimes that sponsor terrorism, and declared the former rogue state to be “kind of annoying, but no longer eligible for the Axis of Evil.”
Recent diplomatic breakthroughs aimed at reducing nuclear proliferation appear, on the surface at least, to benefit the world’s peace and security. Are these changes truly positive?
U.S. to Provide Israel with Munitions for Iranian Assault?
Israeli Defense Forces Colonel Yitzhak Blum insisted that although his country firmly asserted its right to defend its existence, there were no plans to actually attack and destroy Iran’s Natanz atomic facility.
“We could blow up anything we want, whenever we want,” said Colonel Blum, “but we do not want to at the moment. There is some talk of using our planes to distribute a lot of leaflets over specific locations in Iran, but that’s about it.”
We’re making history.
For centuries to come—if the world lasts that long—history books will ask why Americans didn’t stop their government from doing this. Everyone else on the planet has been asking that question for years.
I don’t understand why we’re not rioting in the streets about it. I guess because that’s not considered effective nowadays? But what is? Is anything effective? I’m going to write more letters and make more donations, and I’ve already been doing this but I don’t know what else to do. What else can we do?
This is not a rhetorical question, dear Clusterflock.
I’m Voting Republican
(via Cyn-C)
Daryl, Deron–I Hope You’re Happy
