Category — Uncategorized

About that ICBM that was going to destroy Omaha, which is why they received so much extra Homeland Security money, the BBC reports on the launch.

The CNN coverage is in line with Pentagon “spokesperson”, Judy Tenuta who said: “Hey, it could have happened!”.

State Department “spokesperson”, Emily Litella said: “Never mind.”

Didn’t you hate it as a kid when you had dreams of explosions and rockets that would reach to moon, but you got a wimpy sparkler and two adults telling you to be careful with it.

When are the Wingers going to figure out they are being used? The Shrubbery and company don’t think there is any real threat to their persons from “terrorists”.

If they were worried about attacks they would not be attending announced events all over the country. The security for those events is designed to keep protestors away, not terrorists. If you are worried about terrorists you don’t buy properties in resort areas and then have the FAA make them no-fly-zones so their location appears on the flight charts the government hands out.

If you are concerned with threats you remain in a defensible location and allow your security people to do their job. You do not go flying around the country in a large readily identifiable aircraft and move around locally in a large readily identifiable caravan of vehicles on a known schedule.

Tom Ridge played with the “terror alert” based on the poll numbers. Apparently he took his crayons with him when he left, because it hasn’t changed at all since the last election.

When it is politically expedient they release information on the sources and methods being used to combat terrorism. People should never have been told about Valerie Plame, nor about Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal, but the White House has revealed the names of both. They have shown more concern for the names of the people who crafted their energy policy, than public servants trying to protect this nation.

I wondered how, given the “Stop-Loss” that was in effect, a member of the 502d allegedly involved in the rape/murder could have been discharged. CNN provides the answer: a “personality disorder”.

This guy was pulled out of a war zone and given an honorable discharge for a “personality disorder”. Exactly what kind of “personality disorder” could an airborne infantryman have that would disqualify him for military service, and be benign enough to allow him to be released on the unsuspecting civilian population?

I suspect that the Army realized he was crazy and wanted to be rid of him. They dumped him to avoid having to take care of his problems. I suspect someone in his chain of command knows a good deal more about the crime than has been admitted.

It wasn’t “by the pricking of my thumbs”; it was by accumulation of things that I heard and read that did not fit the normal patterns for numerous events.

Two experienced infantry soldiers, members of the 502^nd Infantry Regiment are captured. How? These guys were armed and armored. They would as soon shoot you as look at you and they were working in an area noted for attacks.

Here are “some of the dogs that didn’t bark”:

• An Iraqi talking to the BBC mentioned finding the bodies by the odor. Decomposition is faster in the heat, but they must have been killed on they day they were taken, or may have been dead when taken, for the process to be that far along.
• There were no demands made. The demands are almost always totally outrageous, but they make them.
• There was no video of the death. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed credit for the deaths, but they always put up a video of the event. The Russians were shown dying, but not the Americans.
• The mutilation was well in excess of the norm including Iraqi reports of castration.

War is a form of insanity, but after a while things tend to settle into a pattern. This incident breaks the pattern. This was a different type of insanity.

[Read more →]

Terry’s back to blogging at Nitpicker and wonders if the so-called conservatives understand the rules of the WWII-era “Office of Censorship” that they want to reinstate, and who would be most affected by those rules.

If you would like to read something lighter about the media you might try the work of another Terry, as in Pratchett, who as a book called The Truth. It is fantasy, okay? There is really nothing in it about wealthy guys from Australia or Pittsburgh who mess around with the world as a hobby and to make a lot of money. It’s a work of fiction, no matter how familiar some things may seem, because it’s set on a planet that’s as flat as a pizza. It has wizards and talking dogs, nothing like our planet.

Both have wooden heads and work with clowns, but one is a Florida congresscritter.

La fête du
Canada
Day

Thank you for not yet building a fence along your southern or western border, and for brewing great beer.

Schedule of Ottawa events and some background.

CNN reports that a priest believes that Warren Buffett is a Nazi:

“The merger of Gates and Buffett may spell doom for the families of the developing world,” said the Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, a Roman Catholic priest who is president of Human Life International.

Referring to Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi death camp doctor, Euteneuer said Buffett “will be known as the Dr. Mengele of philanthropy unless he repents.”

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gives some money to Planned Parenthood, but does not permit its gifts to be used for abortion services. Yes, folks, family planning equates to torture and mass murder. Finding a way to stop malaria means nothing if you hand out condoms.

Let’s be clear on this: these people don’t give a damn what happens to children after they are born.

Adam Felber has re-worked his site, Fanatical Apathy, to become a group blog, including posts from Chris Regan of Mythstory, but he’s have a hard time competing with the public statements of politicians when it comes to satire.

From CNN – VA laptop recovered; FBI says data not accessed:

The FBI, in a statement from its Baltimore field office, said a preliminary review of the equipment by its computer forensic teams “has determined that the data base remains intact and has not been accessed since it was stolen.” More tests were planned, however.

…

Newly discovered documents show that the VA analyst blamed for losing the laptop had received permission to work from home with data that included millions of Social Security numbers and other personal information on veterans and military personnel.

There is no real way of knowing if everything on the disk was copied. You can check the date/time stamp on files and audit trails, if they have been activated, on the data base, but there’s no real way of knowing what went on with that drive.

It’s also nice that they found out that their data administrator didn’t break the rules, the rules were just terrible. Incompetence is rampant because this stuff is basic, things you learn in introductory courses.

Top story on CNN’s front page: Supreme Court voids Bush’s ‘blank check’

From CNN:

[Former Health South CEO Richard ] Scrushy was accused of arranging $500,000 in donations to Siegelman’s campaign for a state lottery in exchange for a seat on a state hospital regulatory board.

Oh, yeah, former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman, the reason the Democratic Party in Alabama is almost as corrupt on the Boy Scouts [yes, Virginia, in Alabama even the Boy Scouts “cook their books”] was convicted as the other half of this pay for play scheme.

Scrushy had escaped in an earlier trial. He “Enron”-ed Health South.

CNN has the details.

School’s In

What was that? Where’s dinner?

[Editor: I’m fish sitting for a friend in the hospital and wanted to see if I would have as much luck as Andante’s Monday Cat Food Blogging.]