Posts from — March 2008

My Copilot

Can’t fool me.

[Editor: I need longer arms. This was taken with my left arm stretched in front of me, but the focus was on my arm and not on Income who didn’t quite manage to close his left eye all the way when the flash went off. His Mom has green eyes, but his are golden.]

Friday Ark

McClatchy reports that Iraqi leader threatens fight ‘to the end,’ as militia puts up fierce resistance

BAGHDAD — As gun battles raged in the southern port city of Basra, parts of Baghdad and neighboring provinces, Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki in effect declared war on Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr’s Mahdi Army, saying he’d fight the militia “to the end” and never negotiate.

In Dayton, Ohio, on Thursday, President Bush praised Maliki’s “bold decision” to confront Shiite militias and said it was evidence that the Iraqi military is increasingly confident and able to act on its own. In fact, the U.S. military is providing air cover, embedded advisers and ground reinforcements for the Iraqi offensive.

Three days into a U.S.-backed government offensive, however, the Mahdi Army retained control of key neighborhoods of the southern port city of Basra and was able to prevent Iraqi soldiers and police from penetrating its strongholds.

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Some people might think that such things happen by accident. Those people are still waiting for Santa Claus on Christmas eve. The Republicans made no attempt to disguise what they were up to, and they left records, including this PDF file of the notes used by Jack Merkl during the redistricting debate in the Florida Senate.

There are 67 counties in Florida and 25 Congressional districts. Some might wonder why there are 6 members of Congress representing parts of Broward County, including 5 of the 8 Democrats. Florida District 21 has a piece in the southwest of the county and Republican Lincoln Diaz-Balart is the Congresscretin.

You need a lot of screen to appreciated the work that went into Broward, which is just north of Miami-Dade county, so here’s a link to a PDF from the county.

If these guys would put as much effort into fixing the state as they do into fixing elections, they could get elected on their merits.

CNN tells me that the Pentagon has announced an Inventory ordered of all U.S. nukes

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates has formally ordered the Air Force, Navy and Defense Logistics Agency to conduct an inventory of all U.S. nuclear weapons and nuclear weapon-related materials to make sure all items are accounted for, according to a Pentagon memo released Thursday.

The order comes in the wake of the discovery last week that four nuclear warhead fuses were accidentally shipped to Taiwan in 2006.

Gates’ memo, issued Wednesday, calls for all items to be accounted for by serial number.

Pentagon officials said at a news conference Tuesday that Gates would call for the review in addition to a full investigation into how the shipment to Taiwan from a Defense Logistics Agency warehouse happened 18 months ago.

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This is Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s 20^th Congressional district, one of the monuments to the grand old political practice of gerrymandering with the added advantage of digital cartography and the use of geographic information systems that makes it possible with fewer registered Republicans in the state than registered Democrats to enjoy a two to one advantage in both houses of the state legislature and the state’s Congressional delegation.

The denizens of blogtopia™ are really getting annoying. Anyone who read my last piece on McPeak and clicked on the links would already be aware of his views on the Middle East which are cleverly disguised in the Wikipedia entry as “Controversies”. There is also a link to the 2003 Oregonian interview that is at the heart of the matter, so you can decide for yourself what you think.

I know he’s a “terrorist-loving anti-Semite”, because I get e-mails and comments every time I say essentially the same thing from people telling me I am.

The only major points of difference are that Commodore McSpacecadet thinks that Israeli considerations were more important to the Iraq invasion than I do, and he thinks it’s Jewish voters behind the skewed policy. I think the possible benefit to Israel was another of the many excuses used to justify a war with Saddam over oil, and the campaign contributions from small, but powerful. segments of both the Jewish population and the evangelical Christian population are driving this.

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The legislature is in session, so the craziness and pandering continues.

Not satisfied with the toxic Amendment 2 [“marriage protection”, i.e. gay bashing], the Republicans have a couple of other amendments they want on the November ballot.

Sinfonian gives the basics behind the effect of the anti-Blaine amendment, essentially making it possible for the state to hand out tax dollars to church groups, something that is currently banned in the Florida constitution. The Christianists were surprised to find out that it wasn’t just the Catholic schools who couldn’t get tax money under the state constitution, so the Republicans are going to amend it so they can divert public school funding to unaccredited schools operated without any oversight by religious groups, the real purpose of the various school voucher bills.

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Dr. Cole reports on the current situation in Iraq:

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that members of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI, formerly SCIRI, led by Abdul Aziz al-Hakim); the Da’wa Party led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki; and the Badr Corps paramilitary of ISCI have fled their HQs in Basra and Kut, because of the threat that they will be stormed by Mahdi Army militiamen [seeking revenge for the current offensive], In fact, some such buildings already have been attacked.

Eyewitnesses reported clashes on Tuesday in Sadr City, east Baghdad, led by Mahdi Army militiamen against American and Iraqi forces. The latter had encircled Sadr City, while the Mahdi Army roamed its streets within. The sound of gunfire could be heard, and helicopter gunships were seen hovering above.

Nassar al-Rubaie, a leader of the Sadrist parliamentary bloc, announced that it would boycott parliamentary sessions until the targetting of his people ceased. The Sadrists have 30 seats in parliament.

Gunships are a good way to kill a lot of innocent people in an urban setting and make the problem even worse.

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Paul Krugman is fed up with the paradox of VSP and writes about it in The age of the anti-Cassandra

Today, our public discourse is dominated by people who have been wrong about everything — but are still, mysteriously, treated as men of wisdom, whose judgments should be believed. Those who were actually right about the major issues of the day can’t get a word in edgewise.

A case in point are all the people who are about to discover the truth about the Surge™ as it falls apart: Iraq forces battle Basra militias

Heavy fighting has been raging in Basra as thousands of Iraqi troops battle Shia militias in the southern city.

At least 30 people have died in the operation, which is being overseen in Basra by Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki, a day after he vowed to “re-impose law”.

Oil-rich Basra is in the grip of a bitter turf war between armed groups, including the Mehdi Army, analysts say.

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According to the reporting of the Charlotte Observer the “accidental” discharge of a firearm on that US Air flight pierced the cockpit wall. They have pictures.

The good news was that the aircraft was in descent and at 8,000 feet when the weapon was fired, so there was no problem with pressure loss.

As for the expert who doubts a single round could bring down the aircraft – what happens if it hits a control computer, or the wiring?

Understand that I have a personal aversion to bullets penetrating aircraft. It is not a pleasant experience.

Two South Florida Congresscritters have said they won’t campaign against three conservative Republican incumbents. One is a black male and the other is a white female. You want to guess which one is being attacked on the ‘Net?

Right in one, Debbie Wasserman Schultz is being bombarded from all sides, but no one is talking about Kendrick Meek. The comments thread that accompanies John Amato’s post at Crooks and Liars is not quite in wingnut territory, but it is a general display of ignorance about the realities of South Florida.

If you wonder what people mean about “gerrymandering”, look at Ms Wasserman Schultz’s 20^th district in the National Atlas. The Republicans spent a lot of time designing districts to ensure that while there are more registered Democrats in Florida than Republicans, Democrats can only win one-third of the Congressional seats, and one-third of the seats in the Florida legislature. It’s some world-class mapping on display.

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Notes from around blogtopia™ that you may have missed.

Lisa at All Hat and No Cattle has returned to her base in Alabama from Costa Rica, but her “stuff”, including her computer hasn’t shown up. She hoping for mañana.

Badtux is spending the week in the desert, leaving The Mighty Fang and Mencken in charge. If you are interested in an apartment full of stuff, they only accept the primo ‘nip.

On Sunday, John McKay at archy celebrated his fifth blogiversary™, which certainly qualifies as a middle-aged blog.

Mustang Bobby has had a brush with infinity…make that T-boned an Infiniti. No humans were seriously injured, but the world is now short one candy apple red Mustang convertible. It is amazing how that car was apparently invisible to the driver of the Infiniti making a left turn right in front of Bobby.

Sharon Weinberger of Danger Room writes about the attempt to change reality: Terror Tourism? What Terror Tourism?

A Jerusalem Post opinion piece that attempts to rebut a series of stories on “terror tourism,” has at least one major problem: one of the rotating advertisements next to the piece, is, in fact, for a terrorism tour of Israel. Oops. Calev Ben-David says the series I co-wrote in Slate rests on the “bogus premise” that Israel would encourage such tours (again, I was somewhat distracted by that large, banner advertisement for the “ultimate tour of Israel,” but oh well)…

Israel is not the monolithic entity that is presented by US politicians and the media. There are voices of dissent in Israel about the methods being used by their government, but those voices are never heard in the US, because anyone who mentions them is painted as a “terrorist-loving anti-Semite”.

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The BBC tells us that MAC-V MNF-I is claiming that Iran ‘behind Green Zone attack’

The most senior US general in Iraq has said he has evidence that Iran was behind Sunday’s bombardment of Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone.

Gen David Petraeus told the BBC he thought Tehran had trained, equipped and funded insurgents who fired the barrage of mortars and rockets.

He said Iran was adding what he described as “lethal accelerants” to a very combustible mix.

There has as yet been no response from Iran to the accusations.

Think of the Spam Song, and substitute “Wolf” for “Spam”.

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