The Bullshit Must Stop NOW

ICHC

We're in the midst of the worst ecological disaster of our lifetimes, in case you didn't know. That would be BP's oil rig leaking billions of gallons of oil into the ocean. The ocean that feeds and sustains us.

The RightWingNutJob Noise Machine, aka Faux Noise and Rupert Murdoch's various rags (the Wall St. Journal, various local fishwrap in different cities), the various "pundits" and opiners, talk show hosts and mouthpieces for the corporatocracy are already trying to spread the meme that President Obama and the Federal government that he heads are somehow culpable in this disaster. They're calling it "Obama's Katrina."

Oh, yeah? Well, I got your Katrina right here, fuckwits. What, do these idiots think that we have forgotten what happened during Hurricane Katrina? That was a mere five years ago, you bilious bloviating bilebags. We all lived through that, in person or vicariously. We have not forgotten the terrible scenes we saw.

So, peeps, if some RWNJ starts haranguing you with this bullshit? Here's what you tell them:

Timeline of events courtesy of Media Matters For America, a nonpartisan fact-checking organization devoted to exposing inaccuracy in reportage.

April 20 (10 p.m.): Oil rig explosion. An April 21 ABCNews.com article reported, "An overnight explosion in the Gulf of Mexico rocked the Deepwater Horizon oil rig off the Louisiana coast, sending spectacular bursts of flame into the sky. The fires were still raging today." The U.S. Coast Guard's National Oil and Hazardous Substances Response System assigns primary responsibility for cleaning up oil spills to the spiller as the responsible party.

April 21: Deputy Secretary of Interior, Coast Guard dispatched to region. An April 22 White House statement noted that following a briefing with President Obama, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Thad Allen, Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, EPA Deputy Administrator Bob Perciasepe, and FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, "Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes was dispatched to the region yesterday to assist with coordination and response." The Coast Guard announced that four units were responding to the fire, with additional units en route.

* Search and rescue efforts begin for 11 missing. An initial focus of the response was the search for 11 missing crewmembers. The search was called off April 23.

* BP confirms U.S. Coast Guard was "leading the emergency response" In an April 21 press release, British Petroleum stated that it was "working closely with Transocean and the U.S. Coast Guard, which is leading the emergency response, and had been offering its help - including logistical support."

* CNN.com: "The U.S. Coast Guard launched a major search effort." An April 22 CNN.com article reported:

The U.S. Coast Guard launched a major search effort Wednesday for 11 people missing after a "catastrophic" explosion aboard an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico engulfed the drilling platform in flames.

Another 17 people were injured -- three critically -- in the blast aboard the Deepwater Horizon, which occurred about 10 p.m. Tuesday. The rig was about 52 miles southeast of Venice, Louisiana, said Coast Guard Senior Chief Petty Officer Mike O'Berry. As of late afternoon Wednesday as many as six firefighting vessels were working to contain the massive fire caused by the explosion.

"It obviously was a catastrophic event," O'Berry said.

April 23: Coast Guard "focused on mitigating the impact of the product currently in the water." On April 23, the Coast Guard stated:

The Department of the Interior, MMS [the U.S. Minerals Management Service], and the Coast Guard continue to support the efforts of the responsible parties to secure all potential sources of pollution. Both federal agencies have technical teams in place overseeing the proposals by BP and Transocean to completely secure the well. Until that has occurred and all parties are confident the risk of additional spill is removed, a high readiness posture to respond will remain in place.

Although the oil appears to have stopped flowing from the well head, Coast Guard, BP, Transocean, and MMS remain focused on mitigating the impact of the product currently in the water and preparing for a worst-case scenario in the event the seal does not hold. Visual feed from deployed remotely operated vehicles with sonar capability is continually monitored in an effort to look for any crude oil which still has the potential to emanate from the subsurface well.

"From what we have observed yesterday and through the night, we are not seeing any signs of release of crude in the subsurface area. However we remain in a 'ready to respond' mode and are working in a collaborative effort with BP, the responsible party, to prepare for a worst-case scenario," Landry stated early Friday morning.

April 25: Response team implements plan to contain oil spilling from source, weather delays cleanup.

* Storms delay response efforts. An April 25 Associated Press article reported, "Stormy weather delayed weekend efforts to mop up leaking oil from a damaged well after the explosion and sinking of a massive rig off Louisiana's Gulf Coast that left 11 workers missing and presumed dead." AP further reported:

The bad weather began rolling in Friday as strong winds, clouds and rain interrupted efforts to contain the spill. Coast Guard Petty Officer John Edwards said he was uncertain when weather conditions would improve enough for cleanup to resume. So far, he said, crews have retrieved about 1,052 barrels of oily water.

* Oil recovery and cleanup were to resume after adverse weather passed. On April 25, the unified command team responding to the spill stated:

The unified command is implementing intervention efforts in an attempt to contain the source of oil emanating from the wellhead at the Deepwater Horizon incident site Sunday.

The unified command has approved a plan that utilizes submersible remote operated vehicles in an effort to activate the blowout preventer on the sea floor and to stop the flow of oil that has been estimated at leaking up to 1,000 barrels/42,000 gallons a day.

Also, BP is mobilizing the DD3, a drilling rig that is expected to arrive Monday to prepare for relief well-drilling operations.

Additionally, the oil recovery and clean-up operations are expected to resume once adverse weather has passed. These efforts are part of the federally approved oil spill contingency plan that is in place to respond to environmental incidents.

April 26: Response crews "to resume skimming operations." On April 26, the response team stated, "Sunday, an aircrew from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sighted five small whales during an over flight in the vicinity of the oil spill, which currently measures 48 miles by 39 miles at its widest points with varying levels of sheening, and is located 30 miles off the coast of Venice, La." The command team further stated, "Following adverse weather that went through the area, response crews are anticipated to resume skimming operations today," including 1,000 personnel, 10 offshore vessels, 7 skimming boats and more than 14,000 gallons of dispersant. At that point 48,384 gallons of oily water had been collected.

April 28: Federal officials realize spill was far more severe than BP led them to believe. An April 28 New York Times article reported, "Government officials said late Wednesday night that oil might be leaking from a well in the Gulf of Mexico at a rate five times that suggested by initial estimates." The Times further reported:

In a hastily called news conference, Rear Adm. Mary E. Landry of the Coast Guard said a scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had concluded that oil is leaking at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day, not 1,000 as had been estimated. While emphasizing that the estimates are rough given that the leak is at 5,000 feet below the surface, Admiral Landry said the new estimate came from observations made in flights over the slick, studying the trajectory of the spill and other variables.

An April 30 Associated Press article reported, "For days, as an oil spill spread in the Gulf of Mexico, BP assured the government the plume was manageable, not catastrophic. Federal authorities were content to let the company handle the mess while keeping an eye on the operation." The article continued:

But then government scientists realized the leak was five times larger than they had been led to believe, and days of lulling statistics and reassuring words gave way Thursday to an all-hands-on-deck emergency response. Now questions are sure to be raised about a self-policing system that trusted a commercial operator to take care of its own mishap even as it grew into a menace imperiling Gulf Coast nature and livelihoods from Florida to Texas.

April 29: Napolitano declares spill "of national significance"; BP insists its "plan can handle this spill." On April 29, BP official Doug Suttles appeared on ABC's Good Morning America and stated, "At this point, I believe our plan can handle this spill, and that's what we're doing." That day, Napolitano declared the spill "of national significance," explaining that "we can now draw down assets from across the country, other coastal areas, by way of example; that we will have a centralized communications because the spill is now crossing different regions."

* EPA preparing for oil to hit shore. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson commented at an April 29 press briefing: "[A]s the oil does hit the shoreline, EPA will provide support to assess the impacts on the coastal shoreline and play a key role in implementing the cleanup. As a daughter of the Gulf Coast, I know that it is our job to ensure people that we will be eyes and ears working with the states who have valuable and vital resources to monitor air, water and land quality." Jackson also stated that the EPA has deployed air-monitoring aircraft "that is gathering information on the impact of the controlled burn on air quality, both in the area of the burn, and, of course, further away."

* AP: "Air Force sends planes to help with Gulf oil spill." An April 30 Associated Press article reported: "Two Air Force planes have been sent to Mississippi and were awaiting orders to start dumping chemicals on the oil spill threatening the coast, as the government worked Friday to determine how large a role the military should play in the cleanup."

* WSJ: Navy joins Obama's "robust response." An April 30 Wall Street Journal article reported that "The U.S. Navy said it will send more than 12 additional miles of inflatable oil booms to the Gulf, as well as seven towable skimming systems and 50 contractors with experience operating the equipment." The article continued: "The Navy is making two large facilities available to the Coast Guard personnel and BP-employed contractors who are currently taking the lead in fighting the spill. Military officials said the booms and skimmers were being sent to a Naval construction base in Gulfport, Miss. The Navy also opened its air base in Pensacola, Fla., to the effort."

The timeline is clear. The incident was reported on 4/21 and the same day, the Deputy Secretary of the Interior and the Coast Guard were on the scene. BP assured everyone that the situation was under control, and minimized the scope of the disaster.

Seven days later, the Coast Guard realized that BP had underestimated the leakage by a factor of five times or more, and had no plan to deal with the disaster. President Obama has told BP that they must pay for the cleanup, but he has assigned the highest level of resources to this crisis.

So I'd better not hear "Obama's Katrina" coming out of anyone's mouth, any time soon. Because Katrina was what caused me, finally, to take a stand against Gee, Dumb? Yeah! and his cohorts, the Bouchebags who squatted in the White House and the Houses of the People and every administrative office and department in this country.

Here are a few ways in which Hurricane Katrina differs from the current disaster:

• BP, NOAA, NASA — no organization could have predicted the oil rig accident.
  
  
• Hurricane Katrina had been predicted weeks beforehand. There was plenty of warning, it was hurricane season, and researchers could see the hurricane approach landfall.
  
  
• BP oil rig explosion — 11 dead
  
  
• Hurricane Katrina — 1,500 dead
  
  
• BP oil rig explosion — Federal Government/POTUS response: same-day dispatch of Coast Guard and high-ranking official to determine nature and extent of damage
  
  
• Hurricane Katrina — Federal Government/POTUS response: Bush flew to McCain's to celebrate birthday party
  
  Remember this?
  
  
  
  Meanwhile, Dick Cheney was off on a week-long fishing "vacation" in Wyoming — supposedly. And Condi Rice was checking out the plays on Broadway, diverting herself with a little shoe-shopping at Ferragamo. Here's the timeline of events, if you want to see for yourself.

Bush waited for FIVE WHOLE DAYS between the time aid was requested and the time he finally reported back to work. He was too busy enjoying photo ops with John McCain's birthday cake and horsing around with a guitar and lying to seniors about his new Medicare drug benefit.

Meanwhile, this just in: Halliburton, Dick Cheney's old company which won so many no-bid contracts after Dick picked himself to be Georgie's Veep, is implicated in the widening scandal. And has been involved in similar environmental disasters.

Moreover: President Obama has already directed that BP will pay the cost of cleanup. BP has, apparently, agreed.

So I'd better not be hearing nothing about no fucking Katrina.

Stumble It!

No Shortage of Teh Stupid

in this world. Oy vey. An Australian woman apparently decided to set her husband's penis on fire because she suspected him of sleeping with another woman.


Hello? Thanks to Lorena Bobbit, most of us are well aware that women from Third World countries are nowhere near as demure and easily dominated as Western men in search of mail-order brides think they are, but girlfriend? Was this necessary?

Sure, if you think your schweetie is schtupping someone else you can get kinda crazy, but seriously. That's the time to take a long walk until the fire in your brain goes out and you can think without "KILL!" appearing in big red letters in front of your eyes every ten seconds. If nothing else, think about your children. You made the mistake of marrying a serial schtupper, figure out how to fix the mistake without causing unnecessary grief and pain for your children.

I mean, seriously. If it's wrong for a man to break his girfriend's jaw because she's schtupping his best friend, it's just as wrong for a woman to set her boyfriend's dick on fire because he's schtupping her, I dunno, hairdresser. Or sister, even.

Plus, like, you killed him, yaknow? What's that about, ya dimbulb? She's got three kids with the guy and she kills him because he's screwing around? Listen, sister, if yer old man is screwing around, divorce the sonofabitch and keep the house and a big chunk of his income. You know, like Robin Williams says, divorce is "from the Latin word meaning to rip out a man's genitals through his wallet." Between child support and alimony, he won't be able to keep the girlfriend happy.

Better yet, have an amicable divorce and walk away. Let him have his girlfriend. You find yourself someone else. Everybody's happy, most importantly the goddamn kids, because you know, this way, their daddy's kacked, YOU're the one who kacked him, and you'll probably spend a lot of time in jail. How's this helping the children?

But no, you, you rocket scientist, you had to pour methylated spirit all over his dick while he slept, and then set fire to him. The poor bastard suffered burns to 85 per cent of his body and died slowly and painfully in hospital 20 days later.

That's bad enough, but what does Mrs. Dim Bulb then do? She tells her neighbours that she only wanted to burn her husband's penis

"so it belongs to me and no one else," prosecutors claimed.

[...]

"It's just his penis I wanted to burn, I didn't mean this to happen," the Adelaide Advertiser quoted her as saying.

Jumpin' Jehosophat, woman, his penis belongs to him, not you, and not his goddamned girlfriend. And if you'd kept your mouth shut, at least some lawyer could have done something for your kids. Even if you don't care about anyone else, could you show some interest in your kids here?

And they say arranged marriages are the best. Whaddya wanna bet Mrs. Dim Bulb's marriage to Mr. Dim Bulb was arranged by their parents?

Oh, and hey, Mr. Dim Bulb, you're dead, and all, so I reckon I should refrain from thwapping you upside teh head with the Casa de Los Gatos Trademarked Golden Bat o'Clue, but you sure as hell were stupid fella. You're not some Western bride-buyer, you know damn well you should not be messing around on your wife or she will cut your nuts off. Why, it's practically a family tradition in some parts of the world. Fuck around on wife? Get your nuts removed.


So which head were you thinking with, that you actually closed your eyes and slept in the marital bed and the marital house? Like any sensible Indian man should do, if you're screwing around on the wifey-poo, for Christ's sake, sleep in the girlfriend's house, dammit. Or in a separate bedroom from wifey-poo. Preferably one with a strong door and a good lock that you keep firmly locked and bolted. And if you weren't schtupping someone else, then a pox upon ye for not sorting that out with your woman.

What kind of man creates this kind of golmal with three children in the house? You don't love your wife, divorce her. Hella lot better than ending up dead with the wife in jail and the kids being raised by relatives. Not to mention some furious neighbours who lost their house too in the ensuing inferno. Idiot.

In additional proof that Teh Cup of Teh Stupid Runneth Over, the Newport News is reporting that the recent drop in fuel prices is going to have an effect on truck and SUV sales — they will outsell cars for the first time since February. Manufacturers are, apparently, offering huge discounts, and teh stupid are rushing to buy. Listen, idiots: First off, please publicly identify yourselves with, I dunno, a BIG RED "S" for Stupid carved into your forehead. Then line up for a good thwack with the Trademarked Bat o'Clue. Because those gas prices will stay low only as long as consumption of gasoline stays low.

Once y'all start driving your Stupidmobiles, aka Suburban Assault Vehicles, in any number, you'll increase the rate of gasoline consumption, at which point, obeying the Laws of Supply and Demand, producers will raise the prices once more while you sit your fat ass in your latest metal behemoth of Stupid and yawp about how high gas prices are and it ain't right and there oughta be a LAAAAW!

There sure as fuck oughta — against Teh Stupid, and moreover, against self-replication by Teh Stupid.


Least, and also last, Gee Dumbya's Daddums, Gee Hell Dumbya, is actually flapping his gums about how his other worthless lump of flesh (or progeny if you prefer) deserves a shot at the Presidency.

Say fucking WHAT? Hello, are we talking about the dickhead who made all that fuss and bother about Terri Schiavo that caused thousands of otherwise ignorant apathetic and plain flat-out inattentive Americans to rush to get DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) provisions inserted in their Living Wills? The same fuckwit who is tied in to the belly-up death of Lehman Bros? Brother of the current Idiot 'n Thief and also of the other two criminals bearing the same last name? Let's see, one of those was tied to the death of Silverado S&L and the other was flogging some bogoid cheap-shit software that purported to "help kids learn" but in reality got a toehold in the public school system at enormous cost to us taxpayers through the "No Child's Bankbook Left Behind" act?

Is Shrub the Elder totally senile or only half in the toilet? Because, Daddums, your upper story is Gone, Baby, Gone if you think the natives will put up with any more of your vile and corrupt descendants in close proximity to the Treasury. Shit, it's gonna take at least a decade to clean up the crap your last cumwad got us in to.

Geez, is this whole family fucking delusional, or what?

From the article:

"I'd like to see him run. I'd like to see him be president some day," Bush the elder said.

The 41st president admitted, however, that there have probably been too many Bushes in the White House lately.

No shit, Sherlock. One was already one too many. Take the rest of your evil spawn to Paraguay and rot quietly in the jungle somewhere, why don't you? Yeesh. The thought of Jeb, who looks like he just stepped off the set of Deliverance, anywhere near the white house is enough to make me puke. Isn't he already in his sixties? In eight years' time, hopefully, he'll suffer from the same senile dementia now affecting both of his revolting parents.

In the meantime? People, please, P L E E Z don't forget who this SpoogeCustard is, and what he's done to the state of Florida, and what his brother and father have done to the US. If you can find it in your heart to elect that worthless wad of hair'nfat, well, hey. It's SO over.

Stumble It!

2008 Elections: A Summary of Facts, Part II

Heeeeere's Johnny!

Today, we continue with our point-by-point examination of the Palin/McCain campaign platform, in brief:

• You say, with regard to "the sanctity of life" — a phrase which appears to mean the sanctity of zygotal life rather than, say, the lives of adult human women — "During more than five years as a POW in Vietnam, John McCain experienced the worst assaults on human dignity imaginable."
  
  Gee, John, how many sins will your POW status cover? You've already flogged this goddamn meme to death, guy. If there is anyone left on the planet who doesn't know that you were a POW, we're willing to bet that said individual has no TV, radio, telephone, computer, or access to the internet; does not read the papers or is both blind and deaf, in addition to never having learned braille; and lives in the middle of the Kalahari or the Gobi desert.
  
  At least you didn't say "I was tortured." Because, as you well know, having voted to allow the CIA to use torture, what the Vietnamese did to you did not qualify as torture, according to the Bush administration. And you support Bush. You voted for him 95 per cent of the time in 2007.
  
  You go on to explain: "Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned [...]." Do the women who plan to vote for you know this? Do they know that they will be condemning themselves, their daughters, and their granddaughters to back-alley abortions? Do you really want to see this happen again? Your response to women's right to choose if they will carry a pregnancy to term is to repeal Roe v. Wade and turn the decision over to state law, with the understanding that you will then "find new ways to empower and strengthen" the anti-choice movement on the state level."
  
  You don't want insurance companies paying for contraception. You won't fund programs that will keep teenagers like Bristol Palin, your Veep candidate's daughter, from getting pregnant. You won't fund sex education for teens. It's almost as if you want to treat all women as breeding sows, John.
  
  And what will you do with all those unwanted children, John? You either failed to vote or voted against all these programs that might help young parents of an unwanted child, or the child itself. So, you want to force their mothers to birth them, but you don't want to give their mothers any insurance for them, or help them heat their homes, or give their moms and dads a little help with unemployment insurance. But you voted FOR "welfare reform," which is another way of cutting down help to poor people who might have children.
  
  You claim adoption is the solution. Yet, with so many American children awaiting adoption, you and your wealthy heiress wife went to Bangladesh to adopt, and have only adopted one child, when you could easily adopt a dozen more without feeling the pinch.
  
  And you say "Decency, human compassion, self-sacrifice and the defense of innocent life are at the core of John McCain's value system [...]." Where's the decency in bringing unwanted children onto an overcrowded planet, John? Where's the human compassion in cutting off funding so the parents can't afford to feed, clothe, shelter, educate, or keep their children warm?
  
  As for self-sacrifice — your Veep candidate, Governor Sarah Palin, just recently attacked community organizers. According to the media, she's a Christian. Perhaps you need to remind her, John, that Jesus was a community organizer — and Pontius Pilate was a governor.
  
  
• On the issue of energy, you say "John McCain will establish a market-based system to curb greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mobilize innovative technologies, and strengthen the economy."
  
  John, we're not stupid. We allowed deregulation of the financial markets and a "market-based system" approach. Look where we are now. We allowed deregulation of the food and drug markets. For at least two years we've had nonstop horror stories about the contamination of our food and drug supply. We know you've never held a real job in your life, John, so let us explain a few things to you.
  
  Businessmen go into business to make money; not to improve the health and welfare of their fellow citizens or fellow humans. A market-based system rewards the most rapacious businesspeople, not the most careful stewards of our resources. We have already caught you and your fellow Republicans out in some dreadful lies regarding the advantageousness of drilling in our beautiful coastal waters and nature reserves. You want nuclear energy. Can we put nuclear plants next to your multimillion dollar homes, John? If not, where can we put them? In the gated communities of the rich? Or in the vulnerable communities of the poor?
  
  Have you forgotten Three Mile Island, John? Have you forgotten Love Canal? Nobody wants nuclear plants or the resulting byproducts in their neighbourhood, John. If you'll set an example of that self-sacrifice you praise so highly by putting a nuclear plant next to each of your homes, maybe others will agree to do the same. Right now, John, your energy plan is based on giveaways to big corporations and gouging the poor and working people of the country.
  
  
• On the issue of ethics, you say "America needs leadership devoted to the public interest, not the special interest [...]."
  
  That's nice. That's what we'd all like to see. So, how come you had 60 lobbyists raising money for you in January? And look how many of them are actually working for your campaign! Even while you were calling lobbyists "birds of prey," you had 160 of them working for your campaign.
  
  Now, because you've never had a real job in your life, John, having lived off first the taxpayer, then your rich wife, let us tell you something. Nobody gives anybody anything for free. Especially not businesspeople. If a businessman gives you a penny he expects two to five pennies in return. So these 160 lobbyists who are working to get you elected? They want something back, John. Salaries are not enough. So what are you planning to give them, John? Because if you're sitting in the Oval Office, whatever ROI they're getting is not coming out of your pockets but ours. We the people. We the taxpayers.
  
  It sure doesn't look like these lobbyists are trying to get you elected for the sake of the people. They have a stake in this. And from here, it don't look good.
  
  In the meantime, could you speak to Ms. Palin about "the willful setting aside of taxpayer dollars for the pet projects of special interests"? Because there's a certain bridge in Alaska that she was supporting when she ran for governor. And now she's saying she was against it. But she kept the money for it anyway.
  
  And then there's that stadium she got the city of Wasilla to agree to build, for which she raised the sales tax, but due to her failure to do her homework, she left the city $20 million in debt. And that was after hiring lobbyists to get the city $27 million in earmarks (or "pork," to use your favourite word, John). For a town of 6,000 people? $47 million dollars? Sounds a lot like pork, John.
  
  
• As for natural heritage, you say you have a "commitment to clean air and water, and to conserving open space," and that you have been "a leader on the issue of global warming with the courage to call the nation to action on an issue we can no longer afford to ignore."
  
  Is that right, John? Because at the RNC, all we could hear was "Drill, baby, drill." Or perhaps those drunk Young Republicans were referring to your Veep candidate. In a non-sexist manner, of course. How do you reconcile clean air and water with offshore drilling, John? Remember that week you were going to make a speech on an oil rig, and then Hurricane Gustav warnings forced you to drop that photo-op? Or maybe it was the oil spill on the Mississippi River?

Sorry, John, and to all our regular readers, a heartfelt apology. Our waders were becoming encrusted with the bullshit through which we had to schlep. We can't read this crap no more.

Final word to John: Frankly, we think you picked the wrong Palin.



Tomorrow, we discuss John's Veep pick, with analysis.

Stumble It!

Oil, oy! No, no ... there's hope ...

Folks, if you want a hit of hope in your rundown weary system, please get acquainted with Amory Lovins.

"What we thought of as isolated pathologies, scarcities of work or hope or security or satisfaction, are not isolated at all, in fact they're intimately related, they're all caused by the same thing, namely the interlocking waste of resources, of money, and of people." -- Amory Lovins

Fascinating interview with Lovins and Charlie Rose.

And, of course, you can read about him at Wikipedia.

Amory Lovins is the founder and CEO of The Rocky Mountain Institute abundance by design. And there’s lots of great info at their website.

Some excerpts from the website ...

Renewable energy is attracting Wall Street but nuclear power isn't. Why? Simple economics, writes RMI cofounder and chief scientist Amory Lovins in Newsweek.

***

"The unreliability of renewable energy is a myth, while the unreliability of nuclear energy is real. Of all U.S. nuclear plants built, 21 percent were abandoned as lemons; 27 percent have failed at least once for a year or more. Even successful reactors must close for refueling every 17 months for 39 days. And when shut by grid failure, they can't quickly restart. Wind farms don't do that," writes Lovins.

***

Once regarded as being too expensive to construct, a study has found sustainable "green"-rated buildings can actually deliver property developers and investors a higher financial return than more traditional non-green alternatives.

***

Amory Lovins also has a book you can read: Winning the Oil Endgame. The Rocky Mountain Institute describes the book as a detailed roadmap for getting the United States completely off oil by the 2040s, without needing new taxes, subsidies, mandates, or federal laws.

Disclaimer: Ms Manitoba has never even met the guy. Just heard him tonight on the radio during the drive home from work ... and was fascinated.

Stumble It!

Iraq: How Many Times

Does Nouri al-Maliki need his ass kicked really hard before he learns his lesson?

This is a question that will undoubtedly be resolved sometime before he either absconds with all the billions we've been pouring into Iraq (no doubt largely funnelled directly into his, and his cronies', unnumbered Swiss bank accounts) or meets a hideous end when he proves to be too much of a liability to either the Dawa Party (his party) or the fragile coalition of Dawa/SCIRI (or Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, ISCI, as it's calling itself these days) and whatever else is coalitioning with these thugs.

We didn't post about al-Maliki's recent primate-like posturing and associated blunders because it was all so deeply depressing and predictable. Why bother? It was obvious from the conflation of Cheney's "visit" to the ME and the revelation that he did not really discuss oil prices with the House of Saud followed by the chest-beating and rump displaying of teh Maliki that Sadr was going to have to kick his baboonlike ass but good just to keep the dumb motherfucker from overreaching.

To recap, a chronology of events:

• March 17, three days before the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq: Cheney flies into Iraq unannounced, meets with al-Maliki
  
  
• March 21, Cheney meets with King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia
  
  
• March 22, Cheney announces through a myrmidon that the only relief in terms of oil prices will come from drilling in America's remaining pristine wildernesses, in other words, thanks America for funding my junket on which I took my wife and daughter and we went fishing in Oman on March 19th, and fuck you very much on oil prices.
  
  
• March 26, Nouri al-Maliki issues his famous "ultimatum" to Iraqi "militias."
  
  Who are these Iraqi militias? Right now, Iraq is controlled by various hardline Islamic Shi'a factions, including al-Maliki's Dawa party, which has the Iraqi Army functioning as its own militia; SCIRI/Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (ISCI) which has its own militia; and Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi.
  
  For the benefit of the apparently senile or terminally stupid John McCain, elderly and doddering presidential candidate, we would like to point out here that al-Qaeda in Iraq (aQI) is a Sunni Muslim organization, with no friendly ties at all with the warring Shi'a militias. Also that al-Maliki's Dawa party is very friendly with the rulers of Iran - so friendly that they greeted that nation's president, Ahmedi Najad, with flowers and parades and marching bands when he recently visited &mdash unlike our leaders, who, despite paying nearly one trillion fucking dollars of our money for the privilege, must sneak into Iraq under cover of darkness and cannot even travel to the fucking market without fully armed squads of bodyguards, full body armour, and air cover.
  
  Nouri al-Maliki was apparently targeting al-Sadr's Jaish al-Mahdi with this crackdown. He called them "worse than al-Qaeda," the Sunni terrorist organization. Apparently, to al-Maliki, al-Sadr's challenge to his Prime Ministership is worse than the terrorist strikes around the world that have killed thousands of American, British, Spanish, Iraqi, Pakistani, and other peoples. Nice to know one's allies' priorities, Mr. Cheney. al-Maliki gave the JAM three days to lay down their arms and personally flew to Basra to supervise the extermination of JAM.
  
  
• March 28, three days later, when it was pretty obvious that JAM was beating the living shit out of the Iraqi army, with Iraqi police turning over arms and equipment to JAM in Baghdad and Basra, al-Maliki "extended" the deadline to ten days.
  
  Despite all the guns and uniforms and training we have given the Iraqi Army, you can't buy loyalty and you can't buy a will to fight. JAM fights because they want control of Iraq and they believe they will be rewarded with political power or houris in paradise regardless of whether they live or die. The Iraqi Army fights because it's a job in a country with staggering unemployment rates and few other ways of making money, and at least they can feed their families. Whose motivation do you think is greater?
  
  Despite the full strength of the U.S. Army as backup & despite 160,000 or so American and British fighters with top-flight military equipment, including air strike capability, al-Maliki was forced to put lipstick on the pig of his claim that he would fight the Shi'a militias to the end. He had to beg for the help of his Iranian masters to end the conflict.
  
  
• March 31, al-Sadr graciously extends the olive branch of peace &mdash along with a nine-point statement demanding the release of various of his supporters who have been arrested but not accused of any crime, and an end to attacks on his forces.
  
  
• April 1, Nouri al-Maliki announces that the military operation in Basra has been a success. Obviously, he's smoking the same thing as Bush.
  
  Five hundred Iraqis were killed in the fighting. al-Maliki is asking al-Sadr to "please return" the 50 armored vehicles and government cars that JAM took. Two Americans were also killed, and rocket and mortar attacks carried out on the "fortresslike, secure" Green Zone, where the American Embassy is located.
  
  
• April 03, we learn that Nouri al-Maliki is a masochist with a fetish for ass-kicking &mdash as long as he is the kickee. Nouri, my man, we had no idea you were such a BOTTOM!
  
  Even as Hojatoleslam Moqtada al-Sadr is calling for nationwide protests to mark the anniversary of the U.S. toppling Saddam (April 9), al-Maliki is planning to enter Sadr City and other JAM strongholds. Is he trying to get the nascent Iraqi Army wiped out? Or is this an attempt to force continuing American and British involvement in the war?

Already the drawdown of "surge" troops has been halted and the British have announced that they will not pull out the 4,000 remaining troops in Basra. Not that the British troops are very effective, since they're all hiding out at the airport, and who can blame them. They must be tired of being used for target practice.

As for American troops &mdash people, if you have friends and relatives over there who were supposed to come back anytime soon, you can just kiss that goodbye. They may never come back at all, except in a body bag, if George keeps letting al-Maliki play soldiers using our forces. Is that what your friends and relatives signed up for? To be the pawns of an idiot who persists in playing with other people's lives and doesn't have the first clue about military strategy?

Meanwhile, you will no doubt be thrilled to your very toenails to hear that Chimpy McAWOL, who managed to weasel out of serving in any capacity except possibly National Buffoon, is paying no attention whatsoever to the restarting of the meatgrinder. Nope, he's busy trying to create a "legacy" or something, at the taxpayers' expense, somewhere in the former Soviet Union.

REUTERS/Francois Lenoir

Clue: They're not laughing with you, George.

Stumble It!

Science: Annual Petrol Fill-up?

Fisker Karma

Yes? Sweet?

Sweeeet! And it's a sports car, too.

The Times (UK) is telling us that you can fill this baby's tank once a year and drive it for the rest of the year with no problems. Is this car available in the U.S.? Because, with the price of gas making Chimpy McStupie's buddies spooge with delight, nobody needs this fucking thing more than the beleagured American consumer.

The makers of the Fisker Karma say that unheard-of level of fuel efficiency is entirely possible if you only drive the car up to 50 miles a day, using just the battery, and remember to recharge it at night.

The car can go from 0-60mph in just six seconds and has a top speed of 125mph - although only in "sport" mode, when the juice kicks in to help power the engine.

The four-door plug-in hybrid, launched today at the Geneva Motor Show, features a small petrol engine and a lithium ion battery pack which work in harmony to power the car using technology developed for secret US military reconnaissance vehicles. It also has an optional solar panel roof that helps charge the car and provide cooling for the interior cabin.

[...]

"It is a rear wheel drive, the car is always being pushed by the rear wheels and the electric motor so the gasoline engine never drives the car, which is the big difference to the normal hybrid of today.”

Even as recently as ten years ago &mdash well, if we hadn't had a bunch of greedy Republican obstructionists in Congress &mdash we would have been manufacturing this car and selling it to everyone else.

Now we'll have to pay for it in Euros. Hopefully, the dollar won't devalue to the point where we'll need a goddamn wheelbarrow full for the purchase price.

Stumble It!

Iraq: More Success

Damn, we gotta quit successin' so much, it's startin' to hurt.

Raw Story tells us that U.S. troops in Iraq have fired on Sunni allies, killing three people. The troops claim that the Sunni group "mistakenly" fired on them first, and they returned fire. This is the third such incident within the past month. A total of 19 Sunni "allies" have been killed, and 12 others injured.

Let's see now, originally we invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, was a "brutal dictator" (aided, of course, by U.S. taxpayer monies, and pictures of him shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld around the time that he received several tons of nerve gas that he used on Kurdish Iraqis are freely available on teh Googlez).


So we were on the side of the Kurds and freedom and against Saddam Hussein, even though we gave him money and weapons to kill Kurds. Got that. 911!!

Saddam Hussein favoured his Sunni Muslim brethren and even though they are a minority (by a small margin) of Iraqi Arabs, they got the best jobs, etc. So when we invaded, we sided with the Shia Muslim Arab Iraqi majority and helped them to kick a bunch of Sunni Muslims out of power. Got that.

But that didn't work out so good, because the Sunni Muslims who were in power when Saddam was around were mostly just your average yob, trying to work and feed their families, and they got kinda pissed off that their erstwhile neighbours were taking over their houses and kicking them out of their jobs, so they started fighting back. So the insurgency was largely a Sunni insurgency, although Donald Rumsfeld said we shouldn't call it an insurgency at all. Got that.

Meanwhile, the Kurds were, like, our friends and everything, because Saddam Hussein had used (our) nerve gas and other weapons (paid for by our dollars) to kill them. So even though we encouraged them to rebel against Saddam Hussein during the First Gulf War, and then left and Saddam Hussein got to bomb the crap out of them, they're still our friends. Got that.

So while the Sunnis were biting holes in our collective ass, it didn't help that Moqtada al-Sadr and his Shia followers who had fought Hussein for decades were being totally ignored by the U.S. in cobbling together a puppet government. So they started taking bites out too. Then the Shia "governmental" factions &mdash SCIRI (now SIIC), Da'wa, and Fadhila parties, all retrograde Islamic theocratic parties who dream of establishing a Shia Caliphate &mdash started fighting each other for control of Iraq's oil, and were not above attacking U.S. military personnel. But waitaminnit, they're supposed to be teh good guyz, even if they are "Islamofascimunists." OK, got that.

Then it turned out that having an armed Sunni insurgency killing, oh, around FOUR THOUSAND U.S. military while we were successfully occupying their peaceful country in which over 1 million civilians have been killed, 4-5 million others displaced and turned into refugees fleeing for their lives, and perhaps another 2 million wounded, crippled, and otherwise maimed, was not such a great idea. And we should try to make friends with these "insurgents," and win them over to our side. So we gave them a bunch of money, guns, and bombs so they would be our friends and stop fighting each other and fight "al Qaeda" which doesn't seem to be such a big player among all the numerous factions out in Iraq, and in fact seems to be headquartered in our other big success, Afghanistan, where it's causing trouble with our friends the Pakistanis. Got that.

Meanwhile, some of our soldiers decided it would be fun to stalk, rape, and murder a teenage Iraqi girl, so they did. And they murdered her whole family, and set fire to the bodies so no one would know that the girl had been gang-raped and murdered. Except it turned out that the girl &mdash Abeer Qasim Hamza &mdash is a member of one of the biggest and most powerful Sunni tribes, the al-Janabi. Um, oopsie. So is it true, like people say, that in the Near Eastern countries, tribal loyalties mean a great deal? Like, you know, people named al-Janabi, or belonging to the al-Janabi tribe might, maybe, hold a grudge against American military because some of their people raped a member of their tribe?

Then our NATO partner, Turki, was getting kinda annoyed because the Kurdish PKK guerillas, who are fighting for a united Kurdistan, were blowing up stuff in Turki (which has a significant Kurdish minority population), and then retreating across the border into Kurdish areas of Iraq. So, even though the Kurds are! our! friends!, we started secretly giving intelligence on Kurdish PKK hideouts in Iraq to our Turkish friends! who promptly bombed the shit out of the Kurds. Who are our friends.

Damn, all this successful successin' is just too fucking confusing for us. There must be somebody out there who can figure out just who the fuck our friends are and who our enemies are in this unholy mess.

Meanwhile, in other late-breaking news, a woman suicide bomber has blown herself up in a Baghdad shopping mall; a suicide bomber killed 80 people in the southern Afghani town of Kandahar; and the Pentagon states that there will be more U.S. troops in Iraq after the "drawdown" (huh?).

And Bush's friend, Prince Bandar of the House of Saud (whose country generously supplied 15 of the 19 terrorists responsible for the September 11th attacks on the U.S.), has been doing some stenchful deals for military might with U.K. companies, and threatening the UK with terrorist attacks if they investigate bribes that were paid to him.


The Boston Globe tells us that the Saudi government provided the September 11th terrorists with financial and logistics support in their quest to destroy the Twin Towers. While the New Yorker (Seymour Hersh, the most trusted name in news) tells us that the Saudi government has given a great deal of financial support to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Why is the Bush family personal friends with these people? Isn't it treason to befriend people who carry out or finance a military attack on your country?

Stumble It!

Iraq: More Success

Damn, we gotta quit successin' so much, it's startin' to hurt.

Raw Story tells us that U.S. troops in Iraq have fired on Sunni allies, killing three people. The troops claim that the Sunni group "mistakenly" fired on them first, and they returned fire. This is the third such incident within the past month. A total of 19 Sunni "allies" have been killed, and 12 others injured.

Let's see now, originally we invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Muslim, was a "brutal dictator" (aided, of course, by U.S. taxpayer monies, and pictures of him shaking hands with Donald Rumsfeld around the time that he received several tons of nerve gas that he used on Kurdish Iraqis are freely available on teh Googlez).


So we were on the side of the Kurds and freedom and against Saddam Hussein, even though we gave him money and weapons to kill Kurds. Got that. 911!!

Saddam Hussein favoured his Sunni Muslim brethren and even though they are a minority (by a small margin) of Iraqi Arabs, they got the best jobs, etc. So when we invaded, we sided with the Shia Muslim Arab Iraqi majority and helped them to kick a bunch of Sunni Muslims out of power. Got that.

But that didn't work out so good, because the Sunni Muslims who were in power when Saddam was around were mostly just your average yob, trying to work and feed their families, and they got kinda pissed off that their erstwhile neighbours were taking over their houses and kicking them out of their jobs, so they started fighting back. So the insurgency was largely a Sunni insurgency, although Donald Rumsfeld said we shouldn't call it an insurgency at all. Got that.

Meanwhile, the Kurds were, like, our friends and everything, because Saddam Hussein had used (our) nerve gas and other weapons (paid for by our dollars) to kill them. So even though we encouraged them to rebel against Saddam Hussein during the First Gulf War, and then left and Saddam Hussein got to bomb the crap out of them, they're still our friends. Got that.

So while the Sunnis were biting holes in our collective ass, it didn't help that Moqtada al-Sadr and his Shia followers who had fought Hussein for decades were being totally ignored by the U.S. in cobbling together a puppet government. So they started taking bites out too. Then the Shia "governmental" factions &mdash SCIRI (now SIIC), Da'wa, and Fadhila parties, all retrograde Islamic theocratic parties who dream of establishing a Shia Caliphate &mdash started fighting each other for control of Iraq's oil, and were not above attacking U.S. military personnel. But waitaminnit, they're supposed to be teh good guyz, even if they are "Islamofascimunists." OK, got that.

Then it turned out that having an armed Sunni insurgency killing, oh, around FOUR THOUSAND U.S. military while we were successfully occupying their peaceful country in which over 1 million civilians have been killed, 4-5 million others displaced and turned into refugees fleeing for their lives, and perhaps another 2 million wounded, crippled, and otherwise maimed, was not such a great idea. And we should try to make friends with these "insurgents," and win them over to our side. So we gave them a bunch of money, guns, and bombs so they would be our friends and stop fighting each other and fight "al Qaeda" which doesn't seem to be such a big player among all the numerous factions out in Iraq, and in fact seems to be headquartered in our other big success, Afghanistan, where it's causing trouble with our friends the Pakistanis. Got that.

Meanwhile, some of our soldiers decided it would be fun to stalk, rape, and murder a teenage Iraqi girl, so they did. And they murdered her whole family, and set fire to the bodies so no one would know that the girl had been gang-raped and murdered. Except it turned out that the girl &mdash Abeer Qasim Hamza &mdash is a member of one of the biggest and most powerful Sunni tribes, the al-Janabi. Um, oopsie. So is it true, like people say, that in the Near Eastern countries, tribal loyalties mean a great deal? Like, you know, people named al-Janabi, or belonging to the al-Janabi tribe might, maybe, hold a grudge against American military because some of their people raped a member of their tribe?

Then our NATO partner, Turki, was getting kinda annoyed because the Kurdish PKK guerillas, who are fighting for a united Kurdistan, were blowing up stuff in Turki (which has a significant Kurdish minority population), and then retreating across the border into Kurdish areas of Iraq. So, even though the Kurds are! our! friends!, we started secretly giving intelligence on Kurdish PKK hideouts in Iraq to our Turkish friends! who promptly bombed the shit out of the Kurds. Who are our friends.

Damn, all this successful successin' is just too fucking confusing for us. There must be somebody out there who can figure out just who the fuck our friends are and who our enemies are in this unholy mess.

Meanwhile, in other late-breaking news, a woman suicide bomber has blown herself up in a Baghdad shopping mall; a suicide bomber killed 80 people in the southern Afghani town of Kandahar; and the Pentagon states that there will be more U.S. troops in Iraq after the "drawdown" (huh?).

And Bush's friend, Prince Bandar of the House of Saud (whose country generously supplied 15 of the 19 terrorists responsible for the September 11th attacks on the U.S.), has been doing some stenchful deals for military might with U.K. companies, and threatening the UK with terrorist attacks if they investigate bribes that were paid to him.


The Boston Globe tells us that the Saudi government provided the September 11th terrorists with financial and logistics support in their quest to destroy the Twin Towers. While the New Yorker (Seymour Hersh, the most trusted name in news) tells us that the Saudi government has given a great deal of financial support to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Why is the Bush family personal friends with these people? Isn't it treason to befriend people who carry out or finance a military attack on your country?

Stumble It!

Environment: A Compressed-Air Car?

How cool is THAT? Tata Motor Company of India is working with a French company to produce a car that runs on compressed air. Tata has been manufacturing and selling compressed-air buses for nearly eight years now, so the compressed-air car should not be much of a challenge for them at all.

Details about the car:

The air car, also known as the Mini-CAT or City Cat, can be refueled in minutes from an air compressor at specially equipped gas stations and can go 200 km on a 1.5 euro fill-up -- roughly 125 miles for $3. The top speed will be almost 70 mph and the cost of the vehicle as low as $7000.

Mini-CAT? City Cat? Too damned cute for words.

$7K for a car. I can't remember when they cost that little.

Raw Story has the video clip and the details.

We here at The Political Cat believe that no one can have too much CAT in their lives. OK, we did once top ten of the little fuckers, and that's dangerous territory, but for a Cat this cute, we'd make way. And will that take the country off the foreign oil teat, or what?

Even though the primary source of oil imports into the U.S. is Canada, Saudi Arabia follows close behind, and it would be worth it to wipe the smug grins off the faces of the people who sponsored Osama bin Laden. If we stopped buying their oil, they wouldn't be able to fund the retrogressive Wahabi school of Islam that is responsible for the jihadist madrassahs that are turning out "martyrs" and "fighters" for the troubling wars attempting to destabilize Pakistan, India, and Afghanistan.

And besides, it's hella cute, that little Cat car.

Stumble It!

Environment: Alternative Fuel - Human Fat?

Wow. We here know so many people who would think this was a good deal - you know, lose fifty pounds, fuel your monthly commute. At least, if if really did work that way, it would sell like ... like ... hotcakes?

Okay, that was just wild woolgathering on our part. The fat, I mean, fact, of the matter is, someone has designed a boat powered by biodiesel, which includes human fat. The fat was removed by liposuction from some willing volunteers, and 10 litres of human fat is equal to 7 liters of biofuel.

Unfortunately, that only takes you 15 km. But we sense a, um, killer product on the horizon. Self- and other-lipectomy as car fuel. Heavier friends could be persuaded to donate and receive, oh, maybe half the proceeds? We could all be trained in liposuction techniques.

Of course, the downside is, overweight folks would be mugged for their avoirdupois. But the upside is, there would be lots of slimmer people, you could eat whatever you wanted with the excuse of turning it into biofuel for your car, and people would stop obsessing about weight and size. Or not.

Details from The Daily Mail via The Huffington Post.

Stumble It!

Iraq: Success!

It appears that the surge has succeeded - in escalating the internecine warfare currently devastating Iraq. Not that Commander Awol von Bunnypants gives a good goddamn. From the Los Angeles Times via the Boston Globe comes the story of suicide bombers in Diyala, Iraq, who have killed up to 24 people today.

The article states, in part:

...attacks have dropped noticeably since the arrival of about 30,000 additional US forces this year. But violence has flared in regions north of the capital, where many of the militants are believed to have fled.

It notes that women are rarely suicide bombers. However, this is the second known female suicide bomber in Iraq. Authorities identified the woman as Suhailah Hussein Chlayeb. Three of her sons had apparently been killed by the Iraqi Army.

Ibrahim Bajalan, the head of the Diyala provincial council, said the bomber was a former member of Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party whose two sons joined Al Qaeda and were killed by Iraqi forces.

"She wanted to avenge the killing of her two sons," he told the Associated Press.

The article fails to point out that just about anyone who had employment in Iraq under Saddam Hussein was required to be a member of the Ba'ath party. As the Oakland Tribune points out:

However, membership or affiliation with the party was required for many government and professional jobs, and American officials have acknowledged that entirely purging one-time Baathists from the ranks of Iraq's civil service may be neither possible nor desirable.

In other, much more important news, the flow of oil was interrupted:

Oil gushed into the Tigris River after an explosion damaged a pipeline supplying crude from the northern city of Kirkuk to the refinery in Baiji, about 125 miles north of Baghdad. Officials suspended the flow of crude from Kirkuk to the refinery until they could repair the damage.

Here's a previous blog post on Baiji.

This is not the first time pipelines carrying oil have been blown up in Iraq. What are the massive oil spills doing to the nation's fragile ecology and its human and animal population?

Stumble It!

Iraq: Bonus Update On Afghanistan

Because we're winning so winningly. In the winningest way. So winningly, in fact, that the poor exhausted soldiers - yes, those very troops whom we support by buying made-in-China yellow ribbon magnets for our SUVs while they lose their brains, bodies, minds, souls, and lives to keep those SUVs supplied with gasoline - are deserting! Those lousy cowards! How dare they refuse to sacrifice for us? How dare they force the Young Republicans on fine college campuses and golf courses everywhere to face the dreaded possibility of a (shudder) draft?

What's the matter with them? Have they stopped listening to Their Masters' Voice? Apparently. At least, Raw Story tells us that the number of soldiers deserting this year marks an 80 per cent increase over 2003. You think these guys might be tired or something? Too many deployments and stop-loss orders? Nah! They're children of the working class. They're used to working. Unlike the rich Republican youth, who've never had to soil their hands with work a day in their lives.

Besides, the Republikids are just following the excellent example of their duly appointed leaders. Didn't Shrubya's daddy get him a plum job in the TANG, so he'd never have to put his own butt on the line? Didn't Richard Bruce the Dork Lord have "more important priorities" than fighting a war meant for the "little people"? Didn't Mittens of Teh Sacred Underroos have God's work to do, instead of getting drafted?

The desertion rate is 42 per cent higher than it was last year.

According to the Army, about nine in every 1,000 soldiers deserted in fiscal year 2007, which ended Sept. 30, compared to nearly seven per 1,000 a year earlier. Overall, 4,698 soldiers deserted this year, compared to 3,301 last year.

Despite the continued increase in desertions, however, an Associated Press examination of Pentagon figures earlier this year showed that the military does little to find those who bolt, and rarely prosecutes the ones they get. Some are allowed to simply return to their units, while most are given less-than-honorable discharges.

Well, there you have it, boyz and girlz. That's one way to show your discontent. If enough of you desert or refuse to fight, you can stop the war. Instead of waiting for our political class, who don't have a single testicle or ovary among the lot of them. The Republicans will never cross Shrubya, who is holding on to the war with all four feet and teeth. And the Democrats don't have a veto-proof majority and are too fucking wimpy to rescue you from the quagmire.

If you want out of Iraq, lay down your arms and refuse to go. It's nothing short of horrifying that so many young people, American and Iraqi, are suffering unspeakably for the sake of cheap gasoline. Because, after all, as the AP points out, 2007 was the worst year in Iraq in terms of American casualties.

Meanwhile, over in Afghanistan, things are going just swimmingly. Here, for example we show you 59 dead Afghani children, five of their teachers, six lawmakers and five of their bodyguards, the handiwork of some crazed suicide bomber. One hundred other children were wounded in the attack. The population will totally support a war effort that ends up killing them and their children in droves, yeah.

The article goes on to state:

The insurgency being waged by the Taliban and other extremist outfits has gained steam since it was launched in the months after the hardliners were driven from government in 2001 by a US-led force.

More than 5,500 people have been killed so far this year -- most of them rebels.

It does not define how one ascertains that the dead might be "rebels." Given the high number of civilian deaths, one wonders if anybody, the Afghan government included, has the first fucking clue.

Meanwhile, the WaPoo announces that Afghan's opium production last year was a record-breaker. Yay! More street drugs for the average American to get hooked on. [/end sarcasm and disgust.]

Proving once again that the WH has the capacity for humour, the article went on to say:

In addition to a 26 percent production increase over past year -- for a total of 5,644 metric tons -- the amount of land under cultivation in opium poppies grew by 61 percent. Cultivation in the two main production provinces, Helmand in the southwest and Oruzgan in central Afghanistan, was up by 132 percent.

White House drug policy chief John Walters called the news "disappointing."

Well, of course they're producing record-busting quantities of opium. It's not like they have health care, education, peace, a working infrastructure, or jobs. Sheesh. The administration claims "a resurgent Taliban" is behind the increase in drug production. Given Shrubya's daddy's peeps' involvement in the drug trade in Nicaragua, one can't help but raise a questioning eyebrow.

Especially when one Gen. James L. Jones, the supreme allied commander for NATO, states that drug cartels with their own armies engage in regular combat with NATO forces deployed in Afghanistan,

"It would be wrong to say that this is just the Taliban. I think I need to set that record straight," he added.

In other news, MSNBC announced that 2007 was the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the invasion of that country in 2001.

Violence in Afghanistan this year has been the deadliest since the Taliban's ouster. More than 5,800 people, mostly militants, have died so far this year in insurgency-related violence, according to an Associated Press count based on figures from Afghan and Western officials.

Meanwhile, we're most decidedly winning in Turki, Reuters reports. The majority of Turks support an incursion into Kurdish territory in Iraq, and are dubious about joining the EU. They also view the U.S. as the chief threat to peace in the Middle-East.

And China just announced that they refuse to attend a meeting with the U.S. to discuss tougher sanctions on Iran. Given that we owe them the house, the car, and one and a half of the children, there's not much we can do about that, huh, Chimpidiot? Because you gave them the keys to the bank, fool, and now they just laugh when we bluster and howl.

Stumble It!

World: Saudi Arabia and Iran

Prince Saud al-Faisal pic from Reuters

Veddy interesting. Reuters reports that a consortium of Gulf states - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - are proposing to set up a consortium to provide enriched uranium to Iran and other Middle-Eastern nations that request it. In an interview with the Middle Eastern Economic Digest (MEED) Prince Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia stated:

"The U.S. is not involved, but I don't think it (would be) hostile to this, and it would resolve a main area of tension between the West and Iran ... ."

[...]

Prince Saud, speaking on Thursday during a visit to Britain, said Iran was considering the offer, which envisages building a plant in a neutral country.

"We believe it should be in a neutral country -- Switzerland, for instance," said Prince Saud. "Any plant in the Middle East that needs enriched uranium would get its quota. I don't think other Arab states would refuse. In fact ... other Arab countries have expressed a desire to be part of the proposal."

So, is this something that is being dictated by the U.S. in an effort to work around the inflammatory rhetoric? Or is Saudi Arabia, with the aid of all the other Gulf nations, ostensibly pro-U.S. regimes, trying to work around Bush's inflammatory rhetoric? Or have the Gulf nations come to the conclusion that high oil prices can only keep their economies afloat for so long, and they'd better find an alternative to nuclear power and work hand-in-glove with Iran to do it?

Lots of questions, no answers yet.

Stumble It!

Politics - Fall's Latest Fashion: Turncoat

Image courtesy of kooldawgtees.com

This week, on the bad side, it's Lyin' Joe LIEberman, registering as a Democrat, according to diarist Sprinkles at Daily Kos. The Chairman of the Connecticut for Lieberman party is, understandably, miffed that the lying whore LIEberman has rejoined the Democratic party after knifing the entire collective body thoroughly in the back.

Next up, "Straight Talk Was So Yesterday" McCain, announcing that he's been a Baptist for years, although he's identified himself as an Episcopalian for years. When dat happen, John? Right before you went a-campaignin' to heavily Baptist South Carolina? McCain has also dropped all mention of Bush from his campaign speeches. Good luck, John, old buddy old pal. That and a couple of bucks ought to get you a nice half-caf mocha soy latte.

Then, Alan Greenspan tells us that he just didn't realize that all those variable ARMs he was cramming down our collective throat were going to result in so much fail. To add insult to injury, he then tells us that we're in Iraq for the oil, something anyone with multiple brain cells has said from before the war even began.

Next up, Dubya's longtime buddy Vicente Fox, who describes his old amigo as stubborn and cocky, and claims he would never have thought Bush could get into the WH. Neither did most other Americans, Vicente, we all think Bush stole both elections.

Iraq War architect and professional hawk, Donny Rummy came out with a nasty little remark about being "too busy" to pay attention to what's happening in Iraq, and stated that he didn't miss ol' buddy Bushie in the least.

And the Pentagon just took a swipe at Rude Ghouliani, who is using Petraeus' pictures without permission in his attack ads aimed at Hillary Clinton. I wonder why?

On the plus side, an entire generation of Cuban exiles in Florida is giving the Republicans the hairy eyeball. Good. We have lots more to worry about than Fidel Castro and that stupid embargo, when we have Stupie McDrunktard in the WH with his finger on the button, ready to throw us all, willy-nilly, into WWIII.

Iraqi parliamentarians allied with cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have withdrawn from Nouri al-Maliki's sham "government," exposing it for what it really is - a puppet force limited to the Green Zone, with its politicians mostly living in foreign lands. As noted by a Kurdish lawmaker:

"The Americans always try to pretend the responsibility for cleaning up this mess isn't theirs and tend to shift blame onto Iraq, Iran and Syria for everything that goes wrong," said veteran Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman.

Traditional Republican constituents in Colorado are really really pissed off at Bush's efforts at oil and gas drilling occur in their hitherto pristine state, opening up opportunities for Democrats to take a couple of seats there.

Military families are calling bullshit on Bush/Petraeus' "drawdown" strategies. Perhaps they're finally seeing the Liar 'n Thief for what he is.

Chuck Hagel calls Bush's Iraq policy a "dirty trick." He won't run for re-election, giving the Democrats an opportunity at yet another Senate seat and forcing Republicans to spend time, money, and energy defending a seat that, as long as Chuck Hagel was in it, was pretty much guaranteed for them.

And - big YAY! - Lincoln Chafee has left the Republican party and registered as an independent. I've always liked Chafee. His positions are pretty moderate, overall, and some of them are downright progressive. I hope he wins whatever he runs for next. I'd rather have him in the Senate than that foul, lying, weaselly little tool, Joe LIEberwhore. Or "Dirty Diapers" Vitter, for that matter.
The Los Angeles times reports, via Huffingto Post, that defense secretary Robert Gates is pushing for larger troop cuts in Iraq, although he's apparently being pressured by the Bushies to backpeddle on that.

The Los Angeles Times also reports that U.C. Irvine is in the embarrassing position of attempting to rehire law professor Erwin Chemerinsky as dean of their law school after the chancellor dumped him for being "too liberal."

Stumble It!