Category — Uncategorized

Minou of French Tidbits has about had it with banking during the Wars on Nouns.

Cash seizures have led to the absurdity of the US v. $124,700 [PDF]: the assumption by courts that the only reason for large sums of cash is drug dealing.

Patrick at Fire Dog Lake is getting really tired of the national panic attack, which everything comes to a grinding halt because of the discovery of containers of H₂O and tubes containing H₂O₂ and NaHCO₃ [as in water bottles and toothpaste with hydrogen peroxide and baking soda].

[Those who have missed it, check out Count Floyd.]

The BBC had a segment this morning discussing the fact that the US has refused to talk directly with Iran. In opposing direct talks Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. of The Center for Security Policy immediately compared talking to Iran to the Chamberlain-Hilter meeting in Munich.

Apparently someone passed out the 3X5 card to cover for the disaster that is the Shrubbery’s foreign policy, and the only thing on it is the Munich meeting. Withdrawal from Iraq – Munich; talk to Iran – Munich.

It is probably not a coincidence that Gaffney, and others of his ilk, avoid fora where they would be required to provide citations for their claims, and examples of the success of their proposed policies.

CNN reports the capture of al Qaeda’s #2 in Iraq.

Al Qaeda would appear to have more #2’s than Eberhard Faber.

Scout of First Draft is more than slightly annoyed when, in defense of the Shrubbery, Jonah Goldberg writes:

And then there’s Hurricane Katrina. Yes, the federal government could have responded better. And of course there were real tragedies involved in that disaster. But you know what? Bad stuff happens during disasters, which is why we don’t call them tickle-parties.

I would have thought by now that everyone understood that the major problem with the Katrina response was not what they did, but what they didn’t do, as in they didn’t do anything for days, and they prevented others from doing anything.

Hurricane John just made its way up the Baja peninsula and the Mexican government made food and water drops by helicopter within hours, not days. Why is the Mexican government able to react more quickly than the US government?

Glenn Greenwald takes issue with Mark Steyn’s endorsement of the attitude of David Warren et al. regarding the kidnapped Fox News journalists.

General George Smith Patton, Jr. was not known as an appeaser, but was considered by many to be both personally brave and extremely bellicose.

Messieurs Steyn and Warren should study General Patton’s well-known quote:

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

The winner isn’t the first “martyr” buried, it’s the last man standing, but people whose biggest fear is a social snub would hardly be a position to understand that.

Jack Cluth over at The People’s Republic of Seabrook is one of the fossils of blogtopia™ ^{[skippy the bush kangaroo]}. Today he is celebrating his Fifth Blogiversary™ ^{[Talk Left]}, which is close to a era in blog years.

Go congratulate the relic.

If you have dipped a toe into the news stream you would have seen some of what James Wolcott describes in his post about rightwing media attempts to OD on testosterone over Iran.

Hollywood at its B picture worst [or best, if you like that sort of thing] never portrayed a “primitive tribe” in a longer or louder war drum sequence than is currently on display stage right. I don’t know if it’s the pleated chinos, tasseled loafers, or bowties that make it such a howl, but someone needs to drop by a poultry processing plant to get them some bones and feathers to add some “authenticity” to their war dance. I realize that they have a shortage of “technical consultants” since Jack Abramoff got busted, but make the effort.

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On September 2^nd, 1945, the formal ceremony ending World War II took place aboard the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

It took the United States 1366 days to help end World War II after the attack at Pearl Harbor.

This is the 1263^rd day of the Iraq War.

It is time to invoke “Momma’s Rule for Meals”: you can’t go back for more, until you finish everything on your plate. Until Afghanistan and Iraq are over, don’t even think about Iran.

If they are going to act like whiny pre-schoolers, treat them like whiny pre-schoolers.

PSotD tagged his blogroll asking about Labor Day, and I’m at a slight disadvantage because for a big chunk of my life it was celebrated as May Day where I was living.

It is rather unique, as it is the only holiday I’m aware of that was imported from Canada where it’s spelled Labour Day.

When I was an elementary school student, it marked the end of summer and beginning of school, but it is a rare holiday in the South as there is no tradition of blowing things up in celebration. There is also no tradition of honoring labor in the South, and labor unions are considered communist conspiracies.

Things were different in New York, as it was considered respectable to belong to a union and at various times I belonged to two, and was actually elected treasurer of my AFSCME local.

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More than two millennia ago a guy wrote a story about the unintended consequences of lying to people.

The IAEA inspectors reported back to the Security Council that they don’t know if Iran wants to build nuclear weapons. The Shrubbery said that if you can’t prove that Iran is not building weapons, then it’s obvious that they are and we must impose sanctions on Iran. The Europeans and the Russians aren’t buying it.

What bothers the Europeans and Russians is the fact that the Iranians are saying: You want sanctions? Well, we can impose our own sanctions by reducing our oil exports by a third. Because of the spike in oil prices, the reduction in output won’t affect the Iranian budget, but the loss of that much oil could double the price of a barrel of crude.

It was interesting to listen to the Robert Siegel piece, Negroponte Hopes to Prevent Intel ‘Fiasco’ :

Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte says he hopes that U.S. attempts to gather intelligence on Iran’s nuclear weapons program are productive — and accurate.

Someone must have warned Negroponte about the job Siegel did on Michael Chertoff after Katrina, letting Chertoff tell the world that there was no one at the New Orleans Convention Center while John Burnett was on the other phone reporting from the Convention Center. How nasty can those NPR reporters get – live fact-checking of government spokesweasels? It would never happen at Faux.

Negroponte also said he didn’t play Colonel Klink and Chertoff swore he never modeled for Edvard Munch. [You must include gratuitous snark on the weekend.]

Hie thee to Musing’s musings for Tom Tole’s cartoon and then continue with Michael’s view of Keith Olbermann’s righteous refutation of Rumsfeld’s American Legion speech from the point of view of a historian.

When you are done there, drop by YouTube to watch Mr. Olbermann and John Dean on Countdown discussing Rumsfeld’s speech and the attempts to spin by spokesweasels.

If you haven’t heard the spin, the claim is that Rummy didn’t really say that those who disagree with the Shrubbery are “appeasers”.

James Wolcott’s post, Parting Shots, points to the UN report that the vast majority of the cluster munitions that Israel used against Lebanon were fired or dropped during the last three days of combat, when everyone knew a cease fire would soon be in place.

He points to Tony Judt’s article in Ha’aretz, The country that wouldn’t grow up. It is a long essay, but worth the time because of the place Israel occupies in American foreign policy.

These people are mad – stark, raving, bonkers!

CNN records the pathology in Sen. Burns: Terrorists drive taxis by day, kill at night and Bush: U.S. in fight against single, worldwide terrorist network.

Yeah, okay. It must be Yellow Cab. because they seem to be everywhere. Instead of tapping telephones we’ll monitor the taxi radios, and instead of airports, we’ll watch cab stands.

I know, let’s reduce the lead in the DC water system and start adding Thorazine^®. The world would sleep better at night.

Via Billmon I found this piece, Nasrallah for Prime Minister – of Israel, by Bradley Burston in Ha’aretz, a major Israeli newspaper.

If Nasrallah isn’t interested in the Israeli job, maybe we could get him to rebuild Iraq or the Gulf Coast. He seems to know what he’s doing, which is more than anyone in the current administration can claim.

You should read the Burston piece to be reminded what it was like when we had real newspapers.