Friday, November 25, 2005

Gaszoleen

With all the recent talk about withdrawal plans from Iraq, I got to wondering what would be an acceptable vision of the country, in the view of Bubble Boy and Go Fuck Yourself.

The most accurate picture I could come up with is a modified version of "The Road Warrior." The wasteland would be OK with the administration - not our country, after all, and we don't do nation-building. The big difference would be with the drilling and refinery operations. The ragtag bunch of good guys from the film would be replaced by your big oil companies, and your perimeter defense of these operations would be replaced by the military of the U.S. of A.


A knife and a school bus? You mean, you still haven't gotten supplies from the Pentagon?

I don't know the Iraqi insurgency would go in for metal face masks or Native American head-dress, but I don't think that's really relevant.



Images via beyondhollywood.com

Thursday, November 24, 2005

Thick heads and forseeable consequences

Shift on Suspect Is Linked to Role of Qaeda Figures

That headline is a bit crytpic. Here's the nut graph:

The Bush administration decided to charge Jose Padilla with less serious crimes because it was unwilling to allow testimony from two senior members of Al Qaeda who had been subjected to harsh questioning, current and former government officials said Wednesday.

So, that torture that Cheney and other wackos are so eager to practice? It screwed up the legal case against these suspects.

Good job. Nice lack of perspective. Way to ignore due process and have this be the consequence.

Can we please get some competent people in charge. I would be thankful for that.

Wednesday, November 23, 2005

The Vice President who must not be named

Via Froomkin, via the NYT:

"After the bird had settled down, Mr. Bush cautiously stroked its white feathers, patted its head and invited a group of schoolchildren to the stage to do the same. Mr. Cheney, who has never been known as a lively campaigner, hung back in a corner of the stage and approached neither the turkey nor the children."

Mr. Cheney had a visible line of drool hanging from the side of his mouth, which strangely was still there after the handlers moved the turkey away. His lips moved and, disturbingly, he seemed to mouth the words, "Children. Yummy children."

Pre-Thanksgiving bitterness

Tuesday, November 22, 2005

Bob Wayward

Via firedoglake (of course), this quote from Woody Woodward on Larry King's show:

But of course, when I went into my aggressive reporting mode, I didn't know exactly what was going to happen.

For some reason, I imagine that Woodward made the "vroom, vroom" noise after the words "my agressive reporting mode."

Journalistic powers - activate!

Sunday, November 20, 2005

Better late than never. Except for the casualties.

Pentagon to Raise Importance of 'Stability' Efforts in War

The Pentagon's leadership, recognizing that it was caught off guard by difficulties in pacifying Iraq after the invasion, is poised to approve a sweeping directive that will elevate what it calls "stability operations" to a core military mission comparable to full-scale combat.

[...]

The directive also envisions sending abroad more civilian officials, including State Department personnel, to help the military establish the peace and rebuild after combat.


This article made me dizzy. Did I dream that the last two years happened, but they did not really happen? Was this article written two years ago but, due to an amusing but astounding series of mishaps, it was not published until now?

Was this article written two years ago, in a parallel dimension in which there is a competent administration, and a tear in spacetime caused the article to appear in our world, at our current time?

Or is it that this kind of initiative should have happened two years ago, and didn't.