Hello, Imus Be Going

Cute un-nappy-haired virgin Tennessee Vols celebrate their Championship win over Rutgers 'Scarlet Letters'
(photo Jim Isaac-Getty Images)





MSNBC Imus in the Morning, April 4, 2007

McGUIRK : They [Tennesee] beat Rutgers by 13 points.

IMUS: That's some rough girls from Rutgers. Man, they got tattoos and –

Meanwhile in the New York Times, reporter Jere Longman writes: “The taller Lady Vols (34-3) dominated the offensive boards and defeated Rutgers (27-9) at its own game-- a hounding, trapping defense that disrupted the Scarlet Knights into 20-for-49 shooting and forced 18 turnovers”

While back at MSNBC….

McGUIRK: Some hard-core hos.

Cut back to the NY Times: "The defeat ended an inspiring season for the young Scarlet Knights, who began 2-4, lost access to their locker room and practice gear, then recovered to reach the title game."

And then cut back to Imus…

IMUS: That's some nappy-headed hos there. I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some -- woo. And the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute, you know, so, like -- kinda like -- I don't know.

From the NYT's Longman I learn that Rutgers historical resilience and tenacity couldn’t overcome Tennessee’s drive and height advantage.
From Imus I learn that the Rutgers players are tattooed whores who don’t have straight hair and that “the girls from Tennessee, they all look cute”.






Cute virginity-powered ball-handling skills overwhelm the rough. hardocre efforts of the so-not-cute nappy-haired Scarlet Whores of Rutgers. Note the Rutgers players streetgang-inspired tattoos!
(Photo: Suzy Allman, New York Times)
















Hmmm…let’s try it again with a different sport.

McGUIRK: They [Dallas Cowboys] beat the Chicago Bears by 13 points.
IMUS: That's some rough guys from Chicago. Man, they got tattoos
McGUIRK: Some hard-core rent-a-fag street meat gay gang..
IMUS: That's some bikini-waxed rentboys there. I'm gonna tell you that now, man, that's some -- woo. And the guys from Dallas, they’re handsome, you know, so, like -- kinda like -- I don't know.

Do you see?
All Imus needed to do was to promise to apply similar insight to other sports and he could have kept his job! Fair and balanced!
Then the only reason to fire him from his position as a sports commentator/analyst/pundit would be that he’s fucking useless at it!

Be that as it may, what relevant insights into the championship game in particular and Women’s NCAA Basketball in general were McGuirk and Imus imparting to the sports fans?

Apparently Rutgers lost because they had that characteristically African-American “nappy” hair (including their white teammates) and probably spent more time getting tattoos and turning tricks than practicing their skills, and thus were no match for the Tennessee Vols who had more manageable hair, who weren’t whoring around, and who were simply more attractive.

So... convenient keratin and cutaneous care combined with chastity and cuteness equals Championship!

Oh and don’t be from New Jersey either (even if you aren’t from New Jersey but just study there, don’t tell anyone otherwise you will be an automatic loser).

Although the press is concentrating on the inherent racism of Imus’s remarks I think they are slicing this incident too finely.

Don Imus is simply a bigot, and despite the philosophical aspirations of the founding principles of this nation (not immediately practiced of course, but built-upon through amendments to the Constitution) a consistent record of bigotry allowed Don Imus to make what most of us consider a fortune. His broadcast bigotry may be gone for the moment, but many still remain to legitimize bigotry in all its aspects.

How sweet it would have been to have seen Imus actually face these young women of Rutgers, attended by a crowd, under the glare and lights of the press, repeat his words to their faces and then have 198-pound 6’-4” Rutgers center Kia Vaughan punch him in the face in recompense for his remarks?

McGUIRK: Don, that hard-core nappy-haired ho kicked you to the curb!

IMUS: Nnnngh..urrgh..doc-tor…eearrgh!

Oh Imus, you were always a hack and a bigot and though you still have your fans they like you have exhausted themselves and they can;t protect you anymore. Bye, Don--like the bigotry you've helped to maintian all this time, you really must be going.

On Cowards and Calumny

My previous post featured my impressions of the Little Green Footballs community's interest and attitude toward the conduct of UK Marines and sailors regarding their surrender/abduction/capture, their captivity and the circumstances surrounding their release.

To my surprise one "Nomenovum" --presumably from the LGF community-- left a comment to which I have chosen to reply in this post. I've copied most (but not all) of his comments here and responded accordingly to his statements and the points raised. The few omissions from his original text are simply for the sake of space--his full original comment is maintained in the orignal post comments of Are the British Now "The French"?

I'm afraid this posted ia a bit disjointed and rambling, but that's because of the source material--its more more coherent from "Do you remeber what happened..." (about one screen scroll)....

So here goes....

Nomenovum: "Ah! The old "chickenhawk" calumny. It always works. It is the zenith of cheap red herrings."

I assume you are equating “chickenhawk” to the phrase “The Fighting 101 Keyboarders”. And wouldn't the nadir of cheap red herrings be more apropos? But I digress....

“The fact of the matter is, you have no evidence that the LGF posters are cowards; however, we have plenty of hard evidence that the UK sailors and Marines are.

I didn’t write that “the LGF posters are cowards”.
But you can reasonably argue that I called a sizeable contingent of LGF commenters “cowards” without actually using the term.

No doubt there are some regulars to LGF who are in the military, some who have served and can speak with a degree of authority on aspects of the military that I, who has never served, and other LGF regulars who have never served, cannot.
And the same holds true of those blogs where the commenters consensus is that there’s nothing noble left in the Iraq occupation or “strategy”, or “mission”.

What really irks me is that there seem to be so many commenters on LGF that are so adamant in demanding that the US military keep fighting in Iraq because of what? Because of terrorists? Because the US aren’t quitters? Those seem to be the general arguments.
These arguments however ignore how totally half-arsed this Iraq adventure is. If this really is all about defending the US and the world against a global threat—as in WWII—then why aren’t we all getting drafted, if it's that important? Why isn’t industry mobilized? Why isn’t Bush burning the midnight oil instead of lounging around his fake ranch two months out of the year?

There were all kinds of reasons why the US went into Iraq and it had damn-all to do with the threat of “terrorism” as was claimed.
But this is the argument than many LGF commenters seem to cling to: “We are fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here!”.
Well, with the world’s most powerful military fighting them over there, we don’t seem to be making much progress do we?
Let ‘em come over here! We should have the home-ground advantage and 300 million privately owned guns. Then we can all sacrifice for the great cause and take pride in it rather than put the entire responsibility for our nation’s and the worlds salvation on 100,000 regular troops and 50,000 dedicated part-timers from the National Guard. Right?

"I find it hard to believe that a man as intelligent as you cannot imagine why someone like me or an LGF commenter may not be in the armed forces of the United States.."

Well thanks for the “intelligent” compliment, but if that’s how I appear it would be more due to a combination of experience, study, inquisition and the use of logic rather than an accidental excess of neurons.

But to answer what you “find hard to believe”;
I can easily imagine why “someone like you” or a regular LGF commenter may not be in the armed forces—because so many commenters a) don’t use the military vernacular and expressions that appear on actual milblogs and other published accounts from serving soldiers and b) because so many commenters demonstrate such spectacular ignorance of basic military functions and protocols. And so few exhibit any knowledge of military history, which is something that any soldier is encouraged to at least be aware of and that one would expect the ordinary trooper to at least have a natural interest in--or so I assume.

Do you remember what happened when US Marines in Lebanon were attacked with a truck bomb?
Nothing happened, except that President Reagan pulled them out of there immediately.

Shouldn’t they have stormed out of the compound guns blazing? Why didn’t they? Because they were cowards? NO!
It’s because to have done so would have been futile and it wasn’t part of their mission.

Mission discipline is an essential demand of the military—apparently you and your “go down with guns blazing” buddies don’t seem to know that—and that’s another indicator that so many of the LGF commenters are just ignorant war-junkies baying for blood and sacrifice from the comfort of their own homes.

To quote the great General Patton (not known for being a liberal) “the idea is not to die for your country, it’s to get the other poor bastard to die for his!”—but apparently a lot of LGF commenters wouldn’t agree. They seem to want to continue the war and have the soldiers die so to preserve their own freedom to not do the same.

"It simply defies logic to think that a non-military man calling a Marine a coward makes the accuser himself a coward"

So, for a civilian to call a Marine a coward would make the civilian a coward because the civilian doesn’t intentionally risk his life, whereas the Marine does?

So a civilian is in no position to question a Marine’s heroism and call him a coward because the civilian isn’t willing to do what a Marine does, right? And therefore the civilian would be a coward in accusing a Marine of being a coward; so who would want to call attention to their own cowardice, right?

Well, as a plethora of LGF commenters who certainly don’t appear to me to be serving military (for reasons I’ve already explained—style, ignorance and probability being major factors, not to mention having the time during the day to comment) and that the majority of the comments I read (about 100 out of the 600-plus) described the captured British personnel as cowards and thought they should have started a firefight from their dinghy even though they were outgunned........we must then both agree that some of the LGF commenters would in all probability be the exact self accusing cowards you identify—non-military calling Marines cowards.

And yet your logic, apparently, dictates otherwise—all those calling the British Marines cowards must therefore be military men, and therefore no LGF civilian commenter has cried “coward” because logically they simply wouldn’t. Hmmmm… fascinating!

But enough of tortured logic , let’s move on

"But never mind. You seem to have forgotten that it is the job of a Marine (or sailor or soldier) to be brave in the face of danger, to resist coercion, and not to lie about their country when faced with the prospect of incarceration by mad Iranians. "

Really? Where the hell is all that written down? Are you quoting from any official manual?

What if a Marine or sailor or soldier is faced with the “prospect of incarceration” by mad Syrians, or North Koreans?

What if the Iranians or Syrians or North Koreans are reasonable instead of mad?
And it seems you are saying (because this is all about the Iranians capturing British military personnel) that the Brits “lied about their country” at the “prospect of incarceration”.
Gosh! Were you there when this happened? Did the Brits tell the “Mad Iranians” that Britain was actually a philosophical construct in the 8th dimension and was ruled by peaceful jellyfish as soon as the mad Iranians warned them that they might be taken prisoner? I'm guessing they didn't.

Lied about their country?!!! Really! Where do you get this stuff from? Oh, let me guess....

It is my understanding (through years of actual study of military matters and having talked to actual POW’s and a variety of experienced officers (rather than just masturbating to the Military Channel on cable) that a Prisoner of War is expected to do his or her best to a) survive, b) assist fellow captives to survive, and then if possible, c) to confound and annoy the enemy whilst in captivity.

What YOU have forgotten, or rather IGNORED is that the UK ISN”T AT WAR WITH IRAN! NEITHER IS THE US! ERGO the Brits WEREN’T POWS! ERGO the Geneva Conventions you so misguidedly quote DON’T APPLY! Despite the involvement of military personnel the issue was an international, civil, diplomatic and legal issue, NOT a military one.
Furthermore you also forget or ignore that these Marines and sailors are given RULES OF ENGAGEMENT and that what military personnel are supposed to do above all is FOLLOW ORDERS!
Their orders were to search ships for “contraband” and it is highly unlikely that such a patrol, especially in this area would be given license to engage in “free-fire” when challenged.
For the Brits to have fired before they were fired upon, given that they WEREN’T AT WAR, would have been a violation of their ROE and and a damn good excuse for the Iranians to respond in kind and then-some and the whole thing could have literally blown-up—which is exactly what a bunch of the dimwits at LGF were keen to see happen.
If only the Brits had panicked, we could have had another war! Fantastic! Just what this country and the world needs!

I don’t contest your negative opinion (and those of so many others I read on LGF) out of a blind devotion to my fellow Brits, but because I have an appreciation of such matters that you apparently don’t.

I grew up with terrorism, thanks to the IRA and intransigence from the UDA and the British Government. I got to see some of bloody results first-hand.
My father was held prisoner of the PLO for two days but they let him go, and he negotiated the release of prisoners on B.O.A.C VC10 (G-ASGN) at Dawson’s field in Amman in 1970—look it up, the first triple-hijacking.
Was my father a coward for not wrestling a gun from one of his captors and starting a fight? Are you calling my father a coward? He saved people’s lives by being smart and sticking to his mission objectives.

I was in Beirut in the late summer of 1974 and saw the Syrian tanks lined up just yards from me on the border, waiting, and watched as the Palestinian fedayeen took potshots at the Israeli RF-4 Phantoms otherwise unchallenged roaring overhead at 500 feet, photographing the city in preparation for the coming war, and I had to dodge a couple of firefights that opened up on the streets of Beirut between gangs of Phalangists and Palestinians, before the shit really hit the fan in 1975.

Face it:

Afghanistan was pitched as a surgical strike against Bin Laden and Al Qaeda, and as strategic effort to bring democracy and stability to that country to deny a haven to terrorists and serve as a model to the region.
Well. Bin Laden is still at large, Al Qaeda still functions, the Taliban have returned, there is no functioning democracy and no stability—after five years.

Iraq was pitched as a surgical strike against Hussein and against Al Qaeda, and as an even more important strategic effort to bring democracy and stability to that country, to deny a haven and possible support to terrorists and to serve as a model to the region.
Well, Hussein’s now dead, the country is leaderless and there’s no-one power to bargain-with, threaten or cajole.
The “government” can’t govern, the US invasion and occupation has attracted terrorists and encouraged radical Islamists all over the world, the US hasn’t won any hearts and minds and it has made no tangible progress; thousands of Iraqis have been incarcerated without real evidence, tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed by the US for sure, hundreds of thousands have been killed overall by local factions—what is there to show for all this, four years, nearly 3300 US dead and $600 billion spent? Where indeed is the good news?

And you and the LGF regulars have your panties in a bunch because a handful of British military had the sense not to trigger another war, one that the same people who “managed” the Afghanistan and Iraq disasters are now itching to wage and that you support? How many wars do you want to lose? Do you really think they’ll finally get it right with Iran?

"Nice twist, though, making this episode another opportunity to bash the United States. The country must have done you great wrong. I am curious to know why you haven’t taken up Aeneas’s suggestion."

Nope, I’ve had a quite decent time here in the US. But which United States are your referring to? The one that does include me, born of American parents, lived-here over half my life? Or the one that excludes me, the one that fits only your view of what Americans are and what America should be? Apparently you have exclusive rights to criticize? You should read the Constitution and the writings of Washington, Jefferson, Adams—you know the guys who defined modern Democracy and this nation?

"The evidence is quite persuasive that most, if not all, of these fifteen are cowards. They certainly shamed Great Britain. They embarrassed themselves and their comrades. They made me embarrassed for them. You should be embarrassed to have such pitiful men fighting for your native land. It was shameful. It does no good to call their critics cowards themselves because it does nothing to change the evidence before your eyes."

See the evidence before your eyes and save your embarrassment for yourself, for your ignorant support of a policy that has corrupted a once great military and that has abused American troops in equipment, in their mission, in the care of the wounded and in honoring the dead of two wars concurrent wars with no improvement in the political, social or military conditions on the ground, and for your ignorance–fueled denigration of these allies who didn’t sacrifice themselves to the bloodthirsty, xenophobic, jingoistic, hegemonistic ambitions you seem to think is America’s “manifest destiny”.
The British embraced that notion and over 400 years created the world’s greatest empire, which took only 50 years and two major wars to collapse. Things move a lot faster these days. Think about it.

Oh and should any US troops have the misfortune of being captured, why don't you teach a lesson to the cowardly limeys and demand that the US troops recieve the same treatment from their captoirs that the US offers its captives--waterboarding, sleep deprivation, beatings, hypothermic manipulation, sexual humilation, all that good stuff--you know, so you have something to be really proud of?

Are the British Now "The French"?

Little Green Footballs is logging some pretty impressive comment figures (500-600) on their posts about the contingent of British sailors and marines held captive for two weeks by the Iranians (compared to say 200-300 on other issues).
Some comments were relatively circumspect, there were plenty of irrelevant ramblings and some flame-wars as one might expect from any large blog thread. I didn’t have the patience to determine the majority viewpoint.

However there was a large contingent of the “Fighting 101 Keyboarders” who charged the British sailors and Marines as cowards and traitors for not fighting to the last man (or woman), and interestingly for not being abused-enough in their captivity to justify their televised “confessions”.

By the action or inaction of a mixed group of sailors and Marines on what was a maritime policing mission, members of the Fighting 101st are convinced the entire British military are cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
Following that logic, the entire US military is really a bunch of closeted homosexual rapists, murderers and torturers (as evidenced by Abu Ghraib, Al-Haditha, Guantanamo and various internment camps in Afghanistan—not to mention all the renditions that have taken place). But of course the fighting 101st doesn’t quite see it that way.

According to the fighting 101st this ad-hoc team of military personnel functioning as customs agents should have opened fire, and damn the facts that they faced overwhelming force, had nowhere to run, weren’t at war with Iran and were in no position to start one.

It is true that a soldier’s lot is essentially to fight and if necessary die for an objective. But each objective has a conjoined practical and political component in time of war—cities for example may be overrun or pounded into oblivion not for military gain but for significant political advantage. What possible advantage would have been gained by these British sailors and marines escalating a small confrontation into an excuse for open war?

But open war is what the fighting 101st want—not that they themselves will serve, nor that they expect to suffer the consequences. As they sit behind their keyboards they accuse others of cowardice and desertion, not recognizing their own.

To them, what is great and good in the world is strictly American and what’s American is defined by them exclusively. Everyone else who doesn’t subscribe to their view is “French”—even, it seems, the British.

McCain's Ego Trip

After being rightly derided for his idiotic claim that some Baghdad streets were safe enough for Americans to stroll-down and that General Petraeus regularly drove around in an unarmored vehicle, what did John McCain do?

Wearing body armor, driven in a fully-armored convoy and escorted by the general and several fully-armed squads he wandered around the Shoria market whilst pretending not to notice the more than 100 soldiers who had cordoned off the area and the three Blackhawks and two Apache helicopter gunships patrolling overhead. Upon returning to the heavily-fortified Green Zone he remarked it was just like “going to a market in Indiana.”

Upon his return to the US he acceded to 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelly that the reality of his trip didn’t quite match his prior claims, but he put the discrepancy down to a poor choice of words:

"Of course I am going to misspeak and I've done it on numerous occasions and I probably will do it in the future…I regret that when I divert attention to something I said from my message, but you know, that's just life…I'm happy, frankly, with the way I operate, otherwise it would be a lot less fun."

McCain had made his claims of the “surge” being so effective that “you or I could walk freely down some streets in Baghdad, today” first on Bill Bennett’s radio show, then to Wolf Blitzer on CNN the next day, and continued to re-iterate his claim for days afterwards: That isn’t “misspeaking”, that’s intransigent bullshitting.

Elsewhere in Iraq on the day of McCain’s hour-long shopping trip one British and six American soldiers were killed as were five Iraqis with 26 wounded. But on the bright side only 20 bullet-ridden Iraqi bodies turned up in Baghdad instead of the recent pre-surge average of 50 per-day.

McCain thought that being able to be driven along the airport road in an armored convoy instead of being flown by helicopter was an encouraging sign of progress (after four years and thousands dead). But how does McCain reconcile his remarks with the reality of his visit?

"I can understand why [the Army] would provide me with that security, but I can tell you that if it had been two months ago and I'd asked to do it, they would have said, 'Under no circumstances whatsoever.' I view that as a sign of progress."

McCain’s trip wouldn’t have happened at all if General Petraeus hadn’t agreed to it—so was that his decision, or was he under orders to accommodate McCain?

McCain wasn’t visiting as a Senator engaged in oversight, conducting the people’s business, but as a presidential contender trying to justify a ridiculous campaign statement; this absurd, unnecessary exercise wasted many tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars and abused the military’s personnel, time and resources just to satisfy his petulance and ego.

We already have a president who fits that bill, we don’t need another. Indeed, we don't McCain in his present position either.

NSA, US Military Target Computer Users, For Freedom!

Jim Michaels of USAT reports in Military beefs up Internet arsenal--Terrorists expand use of computers...that the NSA, the Pentagon and the Air Force are working on a 4–year, $40 million project to "expand capabilities to attack terrorists computer networks, including websites that glorify insurgent attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq” with the contracted ‘help’ of private companies, of course.

Apparently the desk-bound US military is pretty upset with the “sophistication and volume” of their [Al Qaeda and others] videos and messages. Terrorists, it seems, make the best mash-ups.

"You should not let them operate uncontested" on the Internet and elsewhere in cyberspace, said Marine Brig. Gen. John Davis, who heads a military command located at the National Security Agency.

Davis and other officials declined to say whether the military has actually attacked any networks, which would require presidential authorization.

Given that the president has already attacked Iraq, liberals, Democrats, the Constitution and international law I’d be surprised if he hadn’t already authorized network attacks too (the NSA wiretapping of the US phone network doesn’t count as an attack, it's defense).

So how would the NSA attack terrorist computers and networks?

The techniques are highly classified.

So the NSA isn’t using standard techniques like spamming, port intrusion, spy-ware, ad-ware or viruses? I guess not, otherwise they wouldn’t need to spend $10 million a year to employ those readily available techniques, would they?

John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School who also works for the Defense Department on cyberwar issues…favors an offensive approach he calls a "virtual scorched-earth policy."

Unfortunately Jim Michaels doesn’t seem to have enough column-inches to explain what the hell this means, but it sounds like some kind of secret DoD-sponsored Second Life landscaping business that sneakily ruins the Second Life lawns of Second Life terrorists.

Read the whole article –it’s short, but its chock full of stupid ideas from stupid people fucking-around with an extra $40 million of taxpayers’ money on top of their regular salaries and benefits.

Jim Michaels did manage to find a couple of reasonable voices that expressed circumspection about the premise (if not the actual program) but Marine Brigadier General John Davis has at least one politician behind him, money in his pocket, and some kind of pixilated, VRML Mount Suribachi in his sights:

"Our opponents do a heck of a lot more than just watch us in cyberspace," Davis said. "They are acting in cyberspace. We need to develop options so that we can … dominate cyberspace."

I’ve never served, I’ve never fired a gun, but I have to ask: What the fuck kind of Marine Brigadier General is this?

Your opponents, General Davis, attack Marines with real bullets and real explosives and I highly doubt that they would feel particularly well-served that $40-million is being spent on the crackpot computer game you are running when that money could be spent in the field, on vital supplies and support.
What are you planning to do General; defeat terrorism in an online version of Zork? Or do you plan to defeat the enemy in a more up-to-date competitive arena, like HALO?

But apart from all that, I have to wonder what this means for the rest of us. After all doesn’t Bush decide who is a terrorist, based on what Jesus or Barney or Cheney or Gonzalez tell him? And if this $40 million program actually produces anything at all, couldn’t the NSA then apply it domestically too?

You know, former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld (after much deliberation with the voices in his head) figured out that the reason the freedomization of Iraq wasn’t working out the way he expected was that although the army he thought he had were actually a bunch of whining fuck-ups, the real problem was that the terrorists had superior and more creative public-relations which is why Rumsfeld spent $100 million to create an entirely fake “free-press” to inform the Iraqis on the fantastic benefits of invasion, war and occupation (this old post is IMHO one of my funniest—take a look, please!?)

I try to find the humor in absurdity and adversity--I really do; but Jesus H. Christ! the money, lives and futures of millions are STILL in the hands of MORONS!
The US military hasn't necessarily been broken so much by being given a mission it was not designed or properly trained or equipped for (occupation and urban combat) but by the entrenchment of business practices and corporate ideals over military practicalites, and Brig Gen. John Davis's cyberwar fantasy is just one example.

Worse Than Walter Reed?

"Soldiers on crutches and canes were sent to a main desert camp used for Iraq training. Military experts say the Army was pumping up manpower statistics to show a brigade was battle ready". ---By Mark Benjamin, Salon.com

Apparently this little statistical game was played so that Bush could have his 21,000-man “surge”. But because more than 21,000 were needed, some of those unfit for service were magically declared fit after all and sent off to Iraq.

"In an interview for the Salon report earlier this month, Col. Wayne W. Grigsby Jr., the commander of the 3rd Brigade, did not dispute that injured troops were being deployed, but insisted they would be put in safe noncombat jobs once they were in Iraq" (emphasis added).






"it's just a flesh-wound, soldier! So get your ass into gear and report for duty, on the double!!"

Add this to the Walter Reed scandal.
And the reclassifying of injuries to reduce veterans’ benefits scandal.
And the unarmored Humvee scandal.
And the not-enough body-armor scandal.
And the not-enough bullets scandal.
And the not-securing 477 tons of explosives scandal.
And the Pat Tillman scandal.
And the Jessica Lynch scandal (and don’t forget Shoshanna)
And the Abu Ghraib scandal.
And the Haditha scandal.
And the shooting and bombing of non-US journalists scandal.
And Rumsfeld’s automated bereavement letters scandal.
And the air-freighting of the dead as baggage scandal.
And the KBR contaminated water for the troops scandal.
And the waiving of normal recruitment standards scandal.
And the not–enough troops in the first place scandal.
And the invasion-on-false-pretenses scandal.

"Pete Geren, the acting Army secretary, told a Senate panel on March 14 that the Army would investigate the injured soldiers' claims that their medical records were modified at Fort Benning in February in order for them to be sent to Iraq. House Armed Services Committee chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., has asked the Government Accountability Office to investigate. The Army inspector general has also launched a probe. It remains unclear if any of those probes will also look into injured soldiers being sent to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin in January."

Meanwhile the GOP and Bush are insisting that they “support the troops” whilst the Democrats are somehow undermining their effectiveness.

This shit has got to stop, and the only way to do that is to bring the troops home now and then put all the Army bureaucrats, GOP politicians and administration officials involved on trial.

Lies, Shoots and Leaves

Republicans and their political conservative allies in the media have an interesting relationship with words, don’t you think? It’s as though every week they learn to say a new word without learning what the word actually means.

For instance, when the Democrats introduced a bill insisting that the US should see some tangible strategic progress from the use of American tax-dollars in Iraq—the Republicans called it “micromanaging the war”.

There’s nothing in the Democrats’ bill about firing generals because they want realistic numbers of troops, or appointing an ambassador to personally write Iraqi traffic laws, or requiring troops to keep painting schools that kids can’t attend for fear of being kidnapped or killed, or any demands that interviews with soldiers be scripted and rehearsed. That sort of thing would strike me as micromanagement.

What about the phrase “Global War on Terror?”
Terror is an emotion, global means the whole world, war is an armed conflict; but the US military is engaged in armed conflict in just two relatively nearby countries (comprising 1/148th of the global landmass an 1/500th of the world’s surface area) against forces that might number 30,000. The GWOT then is hardly a “global war” and it certainly isn’t combating terror, let alone terrorism (which, being a tactic, is a hard thing to have a war with too). It should come as no surprise then that if the description of the policy makes no sense, neither should the policy itself.

What about “accepting full responsibility”? Saying these words is apparently all that’s required to absolve a Republican of any moral, professional or legal transgression large or small, even after weeks of adamant claims of innocence, denials of self-incriminating evidence and false counter-accusations of their critics. For some reason responsibility means something quite different to ordinary citizens.

Of course the constant distortion and outright misuse of words by Republicans and their conservative supporters may be mistaken, but it is no “mistake”.
It is a strategy long employed by GOP staff specifically devoted to crafting and testing new uses for words and phrases that will help sell policy as product, where the packaging is paramount, regardless of the products’ merits or flaws and the ‘pitch’ is then distributed with instructions to the salespeople who sell the package without consideration of the contents.

It’s not that they promote the good and minimize the bad of the product they are selling, they simply totally misrepresent their “product”: The “Clean Air Act” was NOT designed to produce cleaner air.
Invading Iraq and killing Saddam Hussein was supposed to eliminate the supposedly global threat he posed—yet having accomplished that leaving Iraq would pose a greater global threat? Duke Cunningham and Jack Abramoff were completely innocent until they weren’t just proven guilty but admitted their guilt. In literally every aspect of policy and action the Republicans have lied about their motives, their actions and have even lied about their lies.

And whenever they are caught, they claim ignorance, memory loss and inadvertent illiteracy.
In any other job or circumstance these Republican pundits and politicians would be fired, imprisoned, remitted to counseling and professional care or locked-up as being criminally negligent or insane or for being a danger to themselves and to the public at the least for not knowing the difference between right and wrong or being able to distinguish reality from fantasy.

But instead they are allowed to lie, to shoot their mouths off and leave the consequences of their actions behind for everyone else. They lie about their motivations; they shoot their opponents and then leave without concomitant consequences.

And they do all this with words they don’t understand and refuse to understand. As the saying goes " a little learning is a dangerous thing"; Republicans and their conservative compatriots almost without exception clearly have very little learning, and as the rest of us have learned. it has proven and continues to be, a very dangerous thing.

Brits Fail To Bomb Manchester For London Bombing

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,260450,00.html

British police arrested three suspects in Manchester. England, today for theri suspected role in the 7/7 undergrounf bombings.
Although Tony Blair has been such a steadfast "with" guy instead of an "against" guy why hasn't he bombed Manchester for harboring terrorists--isn't that what George Bush would have wanted? After all, isn't suspicion the standard of proof these days?

If the UK really is our best ally in the GWOT they have to stand up to their responsibilites and bomb the crap out of their own country. Only then will the US stand down and only then will terrorists be not-emboldened .

Operation Iraqi Freedom--The TV War 4 Years On

When the OIF show was first pitched it had everything the executives wanted.

It had colorful characters: a clean-shaven all-American everyman with a mysterious past, a mysterious marriage and 2.2 children, forced by tragedy to confront his demons and become a leader. His loyal friends and advisors; an emotionally crippled mentor with a heart condition, a maverick former wrestler with a unique grasp of logic, a political wonk with a brain as big as a football, and a college-educated black woman whose immobile hairdo belied her true passions.

It had a compelling plot: Together this rag-tag group, thrown together as if by the ineffable hand of destiny, would confront none-other than the latest mustachioed iteration of Satan himself (Hitler and Stalin being the previous two, with Castro relegated to minion status on account of the beard) in an epic battle between a nuclear-armed unelected president allied with religious extremists bent on world domination and a nuclear-armed unelected president allied with religious extremists bent on world domination for freedom!

Even as the writers were still polishing the script, marketing directors were working feverishly behind the scenes developing “buzz”. The security surrounding the plot was unprecedented; the details of how the story would unfold were unknown even to the director and executive producer, let alone the cast! But despite the security, everyone involved in the project couldn’t contain their enthusiasm and let a few details slip, which only whetted the appetites of a ravenous press.

Technical advisor Don Rumsfeld (who played himself in the show until recently) down-played rumors that OIF might have “legs” when he said in a pre-premiere interview that OIF “will last six days…six weeks…I doubt six months”.
But he also spoke of known knowns and unknown unknowns and unknown knowns and known unknowns so convincingly that neither industry insiders nor outsiders could know what Rumsfeld or anyone else actually knew about OIF.

Though the premiere was scheduled for March 20th 2003 the OIF executive producers, in a clever marketing move no doubt inspired by Orson Welles’ infamous War Of the World’s radio broadcast, interrupted ‘scheduled” broadcasting a day early, resulting in a huge ratings bonanza as OIF debuted with spectacular special effects and gritty hand- held footage that only added to the immediacy and excitement of the script.

What was considered a risky project by some industry observers had become a “slam dunk” for the OIF team as, what was supposed to be the final episode of this miniseries—the hero’s landing on an aircraft carrier with a stars-and-stripes “Mission Accomplished”—scored such high ratings that the networks scrambled to offer open-ended contracts to develop and produce new shows every week and unusually with no attempts to change the cast, crew, scriptwriters or producers.

Four years later those concessions to not change a good thing appear in retrospect a bad thing. Production costs rose beyond all expectations whilst the formerly impressive special effects became mundane and rote. Dialog became wooden and plots recycled endlessly. New blood was used in the supporting cast but the old blood at the top began to coagulate and dry and become crusty stains that no amount of Tide could dislodge.

The writers and producers it seems were seduced by their sudden stardom and abandoned their respective crafts: producers have to spend money wisely to put product on the screen and deliver buying audiences, and the writers have to engage the audience with human interest, personal conflict, sympathetic characters that advance the plot, a few moments of victory and ultimately a happing ending.

Instead the script denied the audience the necessary personal connections; the hero never went into battle against overwhelming odds; his buddies never forced him to look inside himself for the fortitude required for him to become what he so desperately needed to become; no hard-bitten principal player rescued a nervous kid, nor did any of the crusty career soldiers turned generals get reminded by a raw recruit of the reason they were fighting and dying.
And as for the inevitable ‘mavericks’, there seemed to be a hell of a lot more psychos raping and killing civilians than those befriending the locals; and any stealing wasn’t from the PX or borrowing from other units to get some home-comforts in the middle of a war or to circumvent military bureaucracy to get the equipment needed to “get the job done”, it was stealing piles of money in the knowledge that they wouldn’t get caught .

OIF practically debuted as a “cult” show, but unlike other cult shows OIF doesn’t even have enough fans to maintain midnight syndication, let alone a new series.
OIF “jumped the shark” with the introduction of the Paul Bremer character and OIF’s spin-off “W.R.” (Walter Reed) is beyond even Michael Crichton’s skills.

It’s definitely time this series was taken off the air.

Conservapedia : What Liberals Don't Want You To Know!

Back in the day when God created America as His Kingdom on Earth, everything a child needed to know about the world and his place in it was taught to him by a devout man equipped only with the Bible, a leather belt and if necessary a dark, splintery closet.

But in the early 20th Century hordes of godless communist euro-trash invaded Americas purple majesty, solicited by a giant French whore loitering around the docks of New York City (the east-coast’s San Francisco). These immigrants brought with them social diseases like diversity and satanic tools of science that have ultimately resulted in all the temptations of the intertubes, of which the most abominable in the sight of our Lord is Wikipedia—make that WickedPedia!.

Every True Christian knows about “The Tower of Babel” wherein a bunch of Arabs cooperated to challenge God but were righteously thwarted when God cursed them with languages other than English, thus preventing the tower from being built.

And what is Wickedpedia but another cooperative that denies God as the source of all things by making up their own self-regulating ‘laws’?
Worse than that, and not content with killing Christian babies, liberal fascists are actively recruiting children, through Wickedpedia’s demonic texts, to create a new world order based on unholy ‘facts’ and satanic peer-review.

Now if these were the good old days, God could just do what he did to the Babel builders, but Satan’s minions have developed language translation software so the old method of restoring God-given chaos to show who’s really in charge just won’t work. Besides as the Bible clearly shows and the last 2000 years of history prove. God did all the heavy-lifting in The Beginning (Genesis) and ever since it’s been up to His sheep to finish His work (which explains a lot really, when you think about it).

So with the clear guidance of the Bible, Christian conservatives have embarked on a crusade to reclaim God’s Truth by turning the Devil’s tools against him in creating God’s own holy Wiki-site—the Conservapedia!

Not only is Conservapedia a tool that tells you what to think, it also has a feature that lets you study what it tells you to think, called StudyConservepedia!

Here’s what an anonymous group of anonymous Christian children wrote to explain it all to you:

“Have you ever dreamed of the ultimate tool for studying history? Have you ever wished for a way to learn that is more fun? Well, here at Conservapedia, we have found it!”

(Actually I thought the Bible was the ultimate tool for studying history, but as our personal Saviour said; “judge not lest ye be judged” so I guess I better keep my pie-hole shut).

“The method of learning that StudyConservapedia utilizes was developed by the teacher and home schooled students of the world history class in northern New Jersey that put together this website. Students studied for half the year using this system. When the mid-term exam finally came the students who had put in extra effort with this system got among the highest scores in the class!”

(See, if you study extra-hard for half a year some of you will get better than average home-school scores! )

Anyway, with the StudyConservapedia system now fully explained why don’t we just dive in to the fantastic world of Conservative knowledge that is Conservapedia and see if we can’t find all kinds of things we can agree upon, for fear of otherwise going to Hell!

(I’ve appended some helpful notes--in brackets like this-- to the selected Conservapedia entries for those unfamiliar with actually comprehending God–approved texts on their own. And by the way, though I've added emphses here and there, all the excerpts below exactly as I found them on Conservapedia this weekend--I am not kidding.)

Ah, here’s something that’s been worrying Christians since dinosaurs ruled the Earth—Dinosaurs! Eeek!

(I’m kidding of course about “ruling the Earth”; they never did that! God ruled the earth and Adam had dominion over plants and animals—though not over his own sinful loins, apparently, but Eve did lead him-on, so Adam’s excused…anywhoo, let’s not dwell on that shall we? Let’s get back to the subject at hand…

Dinosaur: They [Scientists] claim the fossil evidence supports their beliefs. However, there are a number of lines of evidence that point to dinosaurs and man coexisting. For example, trained scientists have reported seeing a live dinosaur...

(Christian fact: Untrained scientists never see live dinosaurs!)

...Of those Christians who reject evolution, the Young Earth Creationists believe, based primarily on Biblical sources, but also drawing on archeological and fossil evidence, that dinosaurs were created on the 6th day of the Creation Week...

(Note the warning! Of those Christians who reject evolution—implying that there are some Christians who accept evolution! The author probably means Unitarians but Conservapedia contributors prefer not to resort to name-calling.)

Take, for instance, the entirely God-created Plesiosaur

Plesiosaurs:-- According to creation scientists, who use the Bible, plesiosaurs were created on the fifth day of the Creation Week

(You won’t find Plesiosaurs in the Bible because that’s not what God called them back then. In fact he made so many of them he didn’t have time to name them—that was Adam’s job and he forgot, thanks to that slut Eve.
Oh, and ignore the apparent discrepancy about whether dinosaurs were created on the 5th or 6th day of creation—that’s untrained scientist thinking! Besides, a Plesiosaur may be a Dinosaur, but a Dinosaur is clearly not a Plesiosaur! God said so, and you can’t argue with Him!)

But that’s enough about things that definitely happened 6000 years ago, what about history not important enough to be in the Bible but that we are forced to know by those secular elitist liberal professors Bill O’Reilly and John Podhoretz are always on about? Well that stuff is covered too, just enough to fool the liberals into thinking they are winning!

History:-- 3500 B.C. began with copper tools, then 2500 B.C. superior bronze tools, then 1200 B.C. superior iron tools. (Entire article)

(And that’s all you need to know, because that’s the entire Conservapedia article, and if it’s good enough for God, then it’s good enough for me!)

Of course there’s more to Conservapedia than just important information about how the Bible confirms everything trained scientists already know.

There are all sorts of other subjects that Conservapedia explains in ways that other encyclopedias simply fail to match, that are fun and easy to learn! Examples?
How about…

The Atlantic Charter:-- The Atlantic Charter was a declaration for free trade and self-determination. U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Minister Winston Churchill met in the Atlantic Ocean on August 1941 in order to begin to plan for peace after the conclusion of World War II. (Entire article)

Done! Next?

Beowulf:--Beowulf the Dane is a character in Beowulf who shares a name with the hero of the poem. (Entire article)

(The hero with whom Beowulf shares his name, which would be Beowulf of course, isn’t important because the main character is Beowulf, not Beowulf. Okay? Okay! Moving on…)

What about modern mythological characters…like Tony Blair?

Tony Blair:--Tony Blair is the British Prime Minister. He belongs to a socialist party[1]. (Entire article)

What else is there to say, really? But if you must learn about the evils of socialism rather than just accepting that socialism is evil, click on the “socialist” link and you will learn this:

Socialism: Socialist parties are extremely common in Europe, even Tony Blair belongs to a socialist party. (Entire article)

If you then click on the Tony Blair link, it will take you back to…Tony Blair, who belongs to a socialist party and must therefore be evil (unlike not-Prime Minister Winston Churchill who spent an entire August treading water in the middle of the Atlantic with ‘FR’ as they planned the aftermath of a war the US wasn’t fighting—see The Atlantic Charter above).

Speaking of godless political trends like socialism, what does Conservapedia have to say about something no one has ever heard-of, like Realpolitik?

Realpolitik: Realpolitik is politics based on reality, which was an approach popularized by Otto von Bismarck in putting together the German nation in the years leading up to 1871. (Entire article)

(Why should you care about this apparently pointless subject? Well consider this: Whilst it took Bismarck from 3500 BC (the years leading up to 1871, when non-Biblical history started—see above) to 1871 to make reality-based politics popular, it took the anointed George Bush only six Republican years to de-popularize reality-based politics, just as God took six Creation Days to make the world! Coincidence? I think not!)

Which brings us to the measurement of historical time…

Centuries:--In the Roman army, small groups of eighty to one hundred men. (Entire article).

(Although there’s no link to Roman in this article, Romans are famous for two things; being terrible with numbers but making trains run on-time (see above) and crumbling architecture. But in their favor they are against contraception and s-e-x, which leads us unnaturally to… )

HPV: ....alternative means of protection against this cancer include the inexpensive pap-smear and abstinence

(See? An abortion will give you cancer, BUT a pap-smear is as foolproof as abstinence--all you have to do is throw away the pap and you're cured of HPV! You'll still be a slut, though.)
But speaking of smears, here’s a thoroughly researched article about Big Oil you can use against anti-business big-government lefty environmentofascists that will make their heads explode!

Big Oil:--Despite criticism from socialist liberals who wish to abolish the use of gasoline, Big Oil has an exceptional environmental track record, often repairing mistakes quickly before they can become disasters. Big Oil has also proven valuable in funding independant scientists[7] who are able to dispute the propaganda behind Global warming without worrying about losing their government or academic funding due to liberal reprisals. Though, it appears now even Big Oil is aknowledging the reality of man's effect on climate [8][9]

(Praise be! Now that could have been written by Neil Cavuto himself!)

And best of all whilst you are learning how to be a better Christian from Conservapedia, you can make other people better Christians too, by submitting an article yourself!

Get your entire home-school involved and then all three of you can copy things from approved sources like Karl Rove or Pat Robertson’s speeches or John Gibson’s “My Word” column or even borrow some of Ann Coulter’s hilarious jokes (liberals claim conservatives aren’t funny, so proving them wrong will be loads of fun) to create your very own article with real words and phrases that conservative organizations use all the time and will happily send you, already written!

But don’t forget, Conservapedia isn’t just for learning, it’s also for attacking and crushing the liberal terrorist baby-killing propagandist Islaminazis who are trying to destroy America by using Wickedpedia to establish a gay communist Mexican science-worshiping new world order through it’s anti Christian-conservative “facts” .

As God said; “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” (Matthew 5.38).

By selecting our own Christian facts from the Bible--because when the Bible was written scientists weren’t even alive so how can they disprove anything?—and by using the 21st Century technology of we will be able to redefine reality not as liberals want it to be, but as God intended it to be. before the evil inventions of science and facts and gay’s, when all the world was flat and Christian and children played with real live dinosaurs—just like the Bible says.