Category — Uncategorized

Scout at First Draft continues to keep the status of New Orleans on people’s mind, because it is not going to get better if people ignore it.

The crew from 3 Old Men have several posts and pictures up from their trip back to the Gulf Coast. They visited the houses they helped build in Mississippi with Habitat for Humanity and then went on to New Orleans.

Folks, things are not fixed, hell, the debris still hasn’t been cleaned up in many areas. You can’t rebuild until you get clearance from FEMA and the insurance companies, and a lot of people want to be sure that the floodwalls are going to hold before they start spending the money. None of that prevents debris removal, but it hasn’t occurred in some places because they are still looking for human remains.

We have been lucky so far, because there is a lot of wind shear that has prevented the formation of storms. There are three possibles out in the Atlantic, but the wind shear has prevented them from developing. Those conditions could change at any point and life could get “interesting” for the Gulf states. It would have nice to have been further along in the clean-up from the 2004 storms, not to mention the 2005.

From the BBC.

A women parked her car, and went in to a salon to have her hair done. When she comes out she discovers that the local government has made her parking space a “reserved for handicapped area”, dripping paint on her car in the process, and she has a £60 [$114] parking ticket under her wiper blade.

The amazing part is that the local government apologized, canceled the ticket, and agreed to pay the cost of removing the paint from her car.

[In the city of Coronado, California, they tow your car, claim you are lying about the re-marking, and charge you $100 to get it back.]

Badtux, the perceptive penguin, makes a very important point about Iraq: it’s no longer a war.

Under the “rules”, when the US captured Saddam, the leader of the “enemy”, the war was technically over, and the “occupation” began. So if the US pulls out, it isn’t a “surrender”, it’s an end to the “occupation”.

It would be nice if we helped to clean up, but there are a lot of things going on that need to be attended to and we’ll have someone throw a benefit to help with costs. In the absence of an official “war”, the violence is a job for the police, not the military. The new government can write and tell us how it worked out. We’ll do lunch.

Karen at Peripetia has been doing original reporting on the Rove indictment story that Jason Leopold wrote in Truthout.

Part One and Part Two are up and well worth a read.

Among other skills, Karen is an attorney, so she has the underlying knowledge of the legal system to ask relevant questions, and she has gotten some answers.

Personally, I think the indictment exists, but Fitzgerald is using it to obtain Rove’s cooperation.

Jane Hamsher of Fire Dog Lake has lost her mother to a sudden illness.

This has been an unkind summer.

A chainsaw is really useful after a hurricane for clearing debris, but you have to know how to use one safely or you may end up in the back of a pick-up racing to a hospital with various body parts in a cooler beside you.

Analogies are like chainsaws: helpful when used with care and knowledge, but dangerous if you haven’t read the manual and don’t pay attention.

The Shrubbery was in Hungary and said that Hungary was an example for the Iraqi people.

I think someone should sit the Shrubbery down and explain that Hungary welcomed the Soviet army’s help in getting rid of the Nazis, but wanted them to leave in 1956.

So Saddam = Hitler, Iraq = Hungary, and the US = the Soviet Union. Somehow I don’t think that’s what he wanted to say, although it is a fairly accurate picture of what’s going on.

Someone needs to show the Shrubbery how to “keep the chain tight and oiled” and always maintain control so those analogies don’t kickback on him.

What is the “Course” that we are supposed to be staying on?

As Holden and Andante have noted it means training an Iraqi army that is ambushing our troops.

We have learned this because Nadia McCaffrey, the mother of one of the two California National Guardsmen killed in one incident didn’t accept the Pentagon version of her son’s death, and Senator Barbara Boxer help bring pressure on the military to investigate the incident.

It means that seven Marines and a Navy corpsman are under indictment for the kidnapping and murder of an Iraqi.

It means Abu Ghraib and Haditha. It means that after billions of dollars and three years Iraqis have fewer utilities than under Saddam Hussein.

This course has cost Iraqi women their civil rights, strengthened the power of fundamentalist Muslims, turned up the flame on sectarian differences.

This course has cost 2500+ members of the US military their lives, tens of thousands have been wounded, with even higher numbers among Iraqis.

It should fairly obvious that the presence of the US in Iraq is not improving the life of the people. We can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, because the tunnel was destroyed during the “Shock and Awe” campaign.

Apparently it was necessary for Congressional salaries to increase by approximately $30K since 1997, but Republicans don’t see a need to raise the minimum wage.

I want one of those who keep claiming that raising the minimum wage costs jobs to point to some facts to back that claim. It has never happened any other time the minimum wage was increased. We are raising the minimum wage in Florida and our employment is stable.

It is another convenient lie, like cutting taxes increases revenues. It doesn’t happen, but the claim keeps being made.

CNN is reporting that the U.S. activates missile defense system.

Who is going to put the tracking device in the North Korean warhead? Who is going to program the missile to fly the necessary course? Do you think the interceptors will actually launch if someone punches a launch button? Will they remember to open the doors on the silo?

When the Shrubbery was re-elected the world’s good will towards Americans vanished. The excuse that we didn’t know what a jerk he was lost its value: people saw what he had done and re-elected him, so Americans were as guilty as their government for everything the US did around the world after that point.

As this Christian Science Monitor article, Kiwis have turned sour on Americans, shows even New Zealand has turned against individual Americans, and not simply the American government. It’s like being beaten up by your best friend from high school.

The South Korean government won’t take our government’s word for what the North Korean government is doing. The South Koreans have been our closest allies on the Asian mainland since the Korean War, and now they don’t trust us.

Decades of confidence building throughout the world have been flushed down the toilet by the delusions of these people. The overwhelming good will the world offered to the US after the 9/11 attacks has been wasted.

For those people who don’t think it matters: ask yourself, who buys the bonds that finance the Shrubbery’s obscene deficits.

The BBC has the details.

See All Hat and No Cattle for the context.

That was my original title for part of my “Heartless” post, below. Thesaurus Rex of Shakespeare’s Sister used the term in a post on the same general subject, and August J. Pollak’s latest cartoon is in a similar vein.

The comparison to Kabuki runs deeper than the obvious theatrical elements that we have been seeing lately in Congress, although the stereotypes and caricatures in themselves would be sufficient.

There are three periods in Kabuki and they are illustrative of Congress. Originally it was an all female art form with wit and promise that degenerated when less talented people entered the stage. It became entertainment for men with money and prostitution was rampant.

The first reform replaced women with young men, but the pattern was repeated and so many reforms and restrictions were placed on the form, including using only older male actors and freezing the repertoire. To save the art it was necessary to reduce the influence of men with money.

Maybe we could reduce Congressional prostitution by only electing women, because old men don’t seem to be the answer.

What’s the difference between George Bush and Kim Jong Il?

One’s a short, obnoxious, high-heel wearing moron who can’t speak English, and the other is the leader of North Korea.

You had to know this was going to happen as soon as they offered Iran a deal; Kim would want to know if Ahmadinejad’s deal was better than his. Kim doesn’t want to take the deal behind door number one if the grand prize is behind door number two.

CBS carries the standard story about what the US says is going on and all of the expressions of concern, real concern, and extreme concern various governments and individuals are making over the possible testing of a Taepodong-2 missile by the North Koreans. Well, except the Russians and the Chinese, who haven’t made a statement, which is kind of odd.

Laura Rozen has posted that the South Koreans have some doubts about the accuracy of the US intelligence on the test. The South is wondering if this might not be a test of one of the shorter range missiles designed to annoy the US and bring attention back to North Korea.

Let’s be clear: of all of the people on the planet who should have been eliminated immediately after Osama bin Laden was neutralized with extreme prejudice, Kim Jong Il has to be number one with a bullet. He has allowed his population to slowly starve to death while he plays games.

* Noh is a Japanese theater form.