Posts from — January 2007

If you want to work at a US port you are going to have to pay up to $159 for an ID card good for 5 years according t the AP article, Port workers to pay for Homeland Security ID.

Workers have to get cards in the near future, but no decision has been made as to when the ports have to have the equipment to read the cards. This program was required by Congress in 2002, but they didn’t do anything until Congress reminded them in October, 2006.

You would have thought that they could have used the cards they designed for airports, but there are no cards for airports. They won’t be introduced until later.

CNN is carrying an AP report, U.S. intelligence chief to switch jobs, that says National Intelligence Director John Negroponte will resign to become deputy secretary of state, the number two position at the State Department, a position that has been vacant for months.

Rumor has it that retired Admiral Mike McConnell, who was the director of NSA from 1992 to 1996 will be appointed NID.

What, they couldn’t find anyone in the State Department willing to work for Rice? Are they running out of Kool-Aid drinkers?

Update: J.M. [Mike] McConnell is a retired Vice Admiral [three stars] which is another wrinkle in this mess, and, yes, that makes a difference among flag officers, whether active duty or retired.

Blogger is definitely balky today, with the most successful strategy being going to a non-BlogSpot site between BlogSpot sites.

Every form of comments has rejected me tonight: Blogger, WordPress, HaloScan – all for different reasons, but the effect is the same.

Lots of equipment got broken by the “hired help” on the rehab project, and he thinks it is necessary to move everything around every time I leave the site, so that I have to go search for tools when I get back.

Sox rolled in something sticky and was totally unhappy with my cleaning efforts, but Dot refused to go near him and take care of the problem, as she normally does.

I need to take down the Christmas lights at my Mother’s house, but the ladders I need are at the rehab site.

The BBC article on the execution, Iraq investigates Saddam footage, show that the al Maliki government seems more interested in finding the individual who made the video that showed their mistakes, than the people responsible for the errors in judgment. Of course, they know who approved this mess, but they obviously don’t intend to deal with the core problem.

Both PZ Myers of Pharyngula in his post, How can they screw up this badly?, and Mary of Pacific Views in her post, The Washing of Hands, see a parallel with another, rather well-known, execution.

One of the major problems with the Shrubbery’s administration is that the “attack dog” propaganda that they have used to win elections doesn’t work on the international stage. Instead of selling their program, they have always won by trashing the program of the opposition. That’s why Republicans keep calling for the Democrats to produce plans – they need something to oppose, to attack because they don’t actually have any plans of their own. This is government by slogan and bullet points because the “leader” can’t deal with anything as complex as a paragraph.

Thirteen months ago the White House produced an outline, National Strategy for Victory in Iraq, that was supposed to be “the plan.” They never wrote the paper explaining what it meant.

Now they are going to announce the McCain “surge” plan, which is actually an escalation, but they won’t tell us what the extra troops are going to be doing beyond vague references to “security” or “training.” This will be more improvisation from a troop of “players” lacking in wit and talent.

A public execution is a staged, theatrical event. It is a morality play put on by a government to teach a lesson. The participants are in costume and the gallows is a stage. The purpose is to demonstrate that “crime doesn’t pay” and “justice will be served.” If the forms aren’t properly observed it can turn the villain into a martyr.

What John refers to as the Ox-Bow Incident in Baghdad took what should have been a ritualized set piece, and made it a badly performed improvisation.

Having seen the unedited video, Riverbend calls it a lynching in which Saddam is the only one showing any dignity.

Glenn Greenwald notes that Iraqi law was not followed and links to a Steve Soto post that reveals that the “cast” was replaced by members of Moqtada al Sadr’s Madhi Army.

Now the media is reporting the U.S. tried to delay the execution, an exercise in crisis management now that it is obvious that that the Shrubbery’s one seeming success in Iraq is as flawed as every other action he has taken.

The “script” is centuries old and there are detailed “stage directions” covering the “props.” Everyone knows that in Westerns, when the mob takes a suspect out of jail to lynch him, the surprise evidence appears to prove the suspect was innocent. In the old days it occurred before the suspect’s death, but later, if the screenwriter was looking for an extra dose of morality and wanted to really punish the mob, the innocent was allowed to die.

to Steve Bates, the Yellow Doggerel Democrat who started back in the days of hand-coded diaries and continues the practice.