Mine! All Mine!

Since I've been on the subject of The Battle of Hormuz Strait lately, here's some good thoughts about Mine Warfare from EagleSpeak:

Mines are an attractive option for many small powers for the following reasons. Maritime powers are highly vulnerable both in peace and war due to their dependence on the sea. Mining operations are far cheaper than counter mining operations, and they are far cheaper than other types of naval weaponry which inflict similar types of damage. Many small naval powers will attempt to use mines in order to deny their coastal areas to forces arrayed against them. Others will use mines offensively to deny port facilities or egress points to hostile fleets. Given the ease of deployment (mines can be deployed from submarines or from civilian vessels) and the growing sophistication of them, mines will remain effective weapons.

Iran's navy has 20,000 men (article is from '04 - G), but they are young and inexperienced, and most of them are riflemen and marines based on Persian Gulf islands. And at higher levels, there is fierce rivalry between the IRGC and regular navies for scarce resources. Due to these shortcomings, Iran's three Kilo-class submarines would be vulnerable, and they are limited to laying mines in undefended waters. Mines, however, are one area in which Iran has made advances. It can produce non-magnetic, free-floating, and remote-controlled mines. It may have taken delivery of pressure, acoustic, and magnetic mines from Russia. Also, Iran is negotiating with China for rocket-propelled rising mines.

Gee, that doesn't look like a 'little white box' to me...

The EM-52 rising mines are part of a 3,000-weapon stockpile of (Iranian) anti-ship mines. This purchase is significant because, unlike most other mines, the EM-52 is operational in deep water such as the Persian Gulf. When the hull of a ship passes over the device the mine is triggered and a rocket is fired at the hull. Placed in choke points such as the Strait of Hormuz, this device could be devastating.

We've come long way from this, baby:

Photo taken in Fixer's bathtub

There's more if you're interested. Also how to counter sea mines with

Mine sweeping attack subs?

Oh, my.

Enjoy.

CIA, Iran & the Gulf of Tonkin

Ray McGovern, obviously a regular reader of the Brain, has generously expanded upon and clarified my post of yesterday from the intelligence standpoint of one who was there. And who is here now. Thanks, Ray.

Ten years. How can our president speak so glibly about 10 more years of a U.S. armed presence in Iraq? He must not remember Vietnam.

Sorry. Should have posted a 'liquid alert'. Bush doesn't know or remember a damn thing about Vietnam other than maybe some of the help's kids got killed there and that them godless commie hippie bastards protested the war because they were too chickenshit to get killed for Amurikkka themselves. I think he has conveniently forgotten as well that he was a privileged rich kid who used his family connections to avoid real service because he too was too chickenshit to get killed for Amurikkka. After all, his life was worth much more than than that of reg'lar kids. He's still a chickenshit, and my apologies to chicken shit.

What follows is written primarily for honest intelligence analysts and managers still on “active duty.”

The issuance of the recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran was particularly welcome to those of us who had been hoping there were enough of you left who had not been thoroughly corrupted by former CIA Director George Tenet and his malleable managers.

The Tonkin Gulf events are perhaps the best case in point. We retired professionals who worked through the Tonkin Gulf incident are hopeful that Fingar can ensure integrity in the current intelligence process as well.

Those of us in intelligence, not to mention President Lyndon Johnson, Defense Secretary Robert McNamara and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy all knew full well that the evidence of any armed attack on the evening of Aug. 4, 1964, the so-called “second” Tonkin Gulf incident, was highly dubious.

Here's the money line:

But it fit the president’s purposes, so they lent a hand to facilitate escalation of the war.

Mr. McGovern goes into quite a bit of detail on the gap between what really happened v. the propaganda and then closes with:

It is my view that the only thing that has prevented Bush and Cheney from attacking Iran so far has been the strong opposition of the uniformed military, including the Joint Chiefs.

As the misadventure last Sunday in the Strait of Hormuz shows, our senior military officers need all the help they can get from intelligence officers more concerned with the truth than with “keeping lines open to the White House” and doing its bidding.

If you’re working in the bowels of the CIA and you find that your leaders are cooking the intelligence once again into a recipe for casus belli, think long and hard about your oath to protect the Constitution. Should that oath not transcend any secrecy promise you had to accept as a condition of employment?

By sticking your neck out, you might be able to prevent 10 years of unnecessary war.

Thanks again, Ray.

Corporate fear is good

Guardian UK

Ask corporate lobbyists which presidential contender is most feared by their clients and the answer is almost always the same -- Democrat John Edwards.

"Once he is president, the interests of middle class families will never again take a back seat to corporate greed in Washington," said campaign spokesman Eric Schultz.

Another lobbyist said an Edwards presidency would be "a disaster" for his well-heeled industrialist clients.

That testimonial right there is enough to make me vote for him if he makes it to February 5.

Update:

A good post about Edwards at Firedoglake

Ding ding ding! We have a winner. Stupidest thing anyone has said this campaign season goes to Lawrence O'Donnell:

.
O'Donnell's usually pretty sharp, but he stepped on his weenie big time. That oughta set the hook...

It's the propaganda, stupid ...

Swiped a great paragraph from a wonderful post by Greenwald:

...

The reason we basically block out from our public discourse the effects our behavior has on innocent human beings -- the reason, for instance, we don't bother to count Iraqi victims and the reason we exempt our own behavior from any sort of scrutiny other than the most self-absorbed -- is because that's the only way that the propaganda can be sustained ("Freedom is on the March. We're Liberating Them. They're so Grateful. Winning Hearts and Minds"). Is there anyone who could make a list of all of the pros and cons from our invasion of Iraq and -- while including the hundreds of thousands of innocent dead human beings and the 4 million who are displaced -- argue that it was worth it? What kind of moral depravity would allow that argument to be made? [my em]

...

I don't give a shit if we're finally winning over there, or the 'surge is working' or whatever. It was morally wrong to invade Iraq. It was morally wrong to inflict such great harm on all those innocents. And it is morally wrong to keep up the charade when there was only one reason to be there in the first place. It's spelled O-I-L, and don't let anyone tell you differently.

Saturday whorage

The next chapter of Thirty Days at Zeta is up at The Practical Press.

Drop your own links in comments.

And for your listening pleasure on a Saturday morning:

Phil Woods Quartet - My Old Flame.

"Stand by to repel boarders! Oops. Never mind..."

Here's a headline at News Hounds that says everything you need to know about the "fair and balanced" lie:

FOX News Chickenhawks Regret Strait Of Hormuz Incident Didn’t Turn Into Armed Conflict

Turns out, the whole "Straits of Hormuz Manufactured Incident" is turning out to be a put-up deal (Ya think!?) or at best a colossal over-blowing of a near non-incident. In any case, the 'official' version is coming unraveled. Even the Pentagon doesn't believe its own bullshit.

I'm sure the idea of a small patrol craft attacking a heavily armed warship came straight out of the 'romantic', at least in the retelling, WWII exploits of John Kennedy and PT 109, which in actuality was cut in two by a Japanese destroyer they didn't see in time to get out of the way and who may or may not have seen them. Accounts vary. In any case, it failed to heave to and machine gun the (lucky!) survivors or sink the PT's remains. Or maybe it was from They Were Expendable.

In actual fact, although they did some damage to warships on occasion, what usually happened when a PT skipper took leave of his senses or got desperate enough to attack a warship, was that it, and its crew, got blown out of the water. They were quite useful for recon, attacking troop and supply barges and small coasters, or for clandestine shit like sneaking MacArthur out of Bataan. I think they also played a large and vital role in delivering whiskey to O Clubs in the Solomon Islands.

Not to take anything away from recklessly brave sailors, but battleships those things weren't.

Also, PT boats were 77 feet long, carried armament ranging from .50 caliber machine guns and 20 millimeter automatic light cannon to mortars and artillery field pieces on occasion, along with four torpedo tubes. They were made out of plywood and had three big inboard engines. Fast but fragile. The Iranian boats looked like about 30-footers (guess) and might as well have been towing water-skiers for all the armament they showed, not that they couldn't have had a load of Semtex in the bow, although they were riding a little high in the water for that. In any case, they'd have never gotten close enough to our ships to have done any damage, and Fixer would have watched the video of our guys blowin' 'em sky high over and over for weeks with his pants down around his ankles. Whee! But I digress...

Just for fun, let's go over the last 'attack' on a U.S. warship that provided a flimsy yet sufficient enough excuse to barely justify the escalation of an unpopular war that we ultimately lost, not that there's any similarities between the Straits of Hormuz and the Gulf of Tonkin, oh, nosiree... well, other than a lying president.

This is from memory, and the book I remember it from is Spies and Commandos: How America Lost the Secret War in North Vietnam.

For quite some time in the early '60s, the CIA (remember them?), who were pretty much in charge of all our fuckups in Vietnam at the time, had been running small boat ops against North Vietnamese naval bases, using CIA-supplied Swedish boats and South Vietnamese crews. The NV didn't have a blue-water navy, but they did have a lot of patrol boats at these bases, very close in size and speed to what the CIA sent against them.

After several such attacks, the NV were laying in wait for another one, and were in position to intercept it. The South Viet crews and their CIA advisors, not being total dummies (I'm being kind), turned tail and GTFO of there at high speed. The North Viets gave chase, shooting at them with several 12.7mm heavy machine guns, their equivalent to our .50 cal Ma Deuce.

The South Viet boats ran full speed out into the Gulf of Tonkin towards USS Maddox which may or may not have been there to support them, seeking safety and covering fire. The North Viets were agressively defending themselves, their base, their coast, their country. Wait a minute, they're not allowed to do that, are they? An overshot from a North Viet gun splattered the paint on Maddox and set the whole deal off. The details, of course, were kept quiet. The official version was "They attacked us!", when closer to the truth would have been "They started it! They hit us back after we sucker punched 'em!".

It was the perfect excuse for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that led to 58,000 American and only God knows how many Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian deaths. So, looking back on history, how'd all that work out?

We have much better communications and technical gear these days, and our military is not eager (I hope) to let Bush ruin it any further than he already has. I hope that good leaks and a little common sense will be enough to hold off Bush and Cheney from doing something to Iran in the next 373 days that we'll all regret for the next 40 years.

What Is He Capable Of? The Presidential Psychology at the End of Days

I know we've all read psychological evaluations of the Chimp. Here's a good, and long, one from a coupla shrinks writing for Truthout. The quotes I'll use won't even come close to what these guys are saying. Go read this one. Fuckin' scary that this crazy fucker was ever allowed to get the power he has.

So, torture by his administration is justified - in fact is not even torture - because it is used by Good Americans in a war against Satanic forces.

Former President Jimmy Carter's faith, like that of many evangelicals, involves a powerful commitment to love and tolerance. We do not detect a similar commitment in Bush. Spiritual issues and political motives appear secondary to Bush's subconscious use of his faith as a psychological defense. That defense "resolves" and protects him from the pain of a core inner conflict. The drinking and alleged drug taking of his younger years once resolved that same conflict. The supposed spiritual awakening Bush underwent in the mid-1980s allowed him to trade one defense for another. (Author Craig Unger has shown Bush's famous "mustard seed" moment with the Rev. Billy Graham - widely celebrated by the president - never happened; at the same time, Bush carefully avoids mentioning the faith awakening moment he probably really did have with radical evangelical preacher Arthur Blessitt.) In one sense, a half-hidden Manichean Christianity was more effective than alcohol in masking Bush's inner conflict. It made it possible for him to be president.

Because he unconsciously expects to be seen by the world as a failure, Bush feels a strange comfort and familiarity in failing and then in denying that he is failing. He can never learn from mistakes. Worse, his psychodynamics ensure that his efforts to avoid his failures inevitably produce more failures.

I woulda wrote that a little differently - he is seen by the world as a failure, and we would love to feel a strange comfort in seeing him unconscious so he could not produce more failures.

Here's the money paragraph:

After previous articles about Bush's psychology, we received a number of emails from clinicians agreeing with our description of Bush's basic psychodynamic, and offering their diagnoses. These varied from one another, sometimes substantially, as might be expected, since no one we know of has had access to a first-hand psychiatric evaluation of Mr. Bush. What can we say about his psychopathology? We find no evidence in the public record that the president hears voices or is mentally ill in a way that would require hospitalization or medication, though some psychiatrists or psychopharmacologists might prescribe medication if he came in for treatment of his own accord. We think Bush's psychological dysfunctions are profound, but they are of the sort that would probably not arouse notice if he were, say, the owner of the Texas Rangers, a job he apparently enjoyed. (Draper 42) (Of course, being a baseball team owner replayed his central theme: his father had the baseball talent and he lacked it.) That said, we believe the effect of the presidency on Bush's psychodynamics and the effect of Bush's psychodynamics on the presidency have created a situation where his personality is as genuinely dangerous to the nation as if he were delusional.

So he's not clinically delusional. He sure as hell is giving a good "I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night" reasonable facsimile of it.

We believe the great foreseeable peril of Bush's remaining year in office is the intersection of his Christian defense with Iran. In recent months, when Bush warned that Iran sought to launch World War III, he seems to have unconsciously told us it is he who wants war. The neo-conservative agenda to capture the Middle East for its oil, only reinforces Bush's own psychological reasons for attacking Iran: 1) to certify his biblical mission, and 2) to avoid facing the colossal incompetence of the Iraq war by bequeathing a widened and inextricable conflict to his successor. We believe Bush is aware that the long-term chaos that might result from an attack on Iran could confound the historical image of his administration enough to make his own failures harder to see. In 50 or 100 years - after he is dead, anyway - historians might even see his worldview in a favorable light. After all, they're still debating George Washington. That's what he thinks. The presidency has become for Bush like the popular "global domination" board game he played with fellow undergrads at Yale. There, he was known as the player willing to take the most risks.

Bush and Cheney were stymied by the NIE, but the best we can hope for is that they just plain run out of time before they can figure out a way to plunge us into a wider failed war. And then...

Some have imagined a worse scenario. In 2007, a statement to a small group of constituents by Democratic representative John Olver of Amherst, Mass., made the rounds on the Internet. Olver worried that Bush would attack Iran, declare a national emergency and suspend the 2008 elections. A clarifying email from Olver's press secretary to us said the congressman had no evidence that any of this would happen but that he had worried about a "thought crime" on the part of the president.

Is Bush psychologically capable of acting out such a "thought crime," maneuvering to remain in power? Would Bush ever actually move to suspend the Constitution? Unfortunately, he's done just that already, in significant ways. How committed is he really to the idea of democracy he talks about incessantly? Psychologically these are interesting questions. Given his tendency to polarize and split his ambivalence, we'd have to say that his constant pieties about democracy suggest the opposite is significantly at work in his consciousness. He's even joked about it: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." Of course, he would vehemently deny that he is dictator even if he became one.

Shorter: We got a self-knowingly inadequate sociopathic dry-drunk misguided Jesus freak as president who will do anything - even if it involves the destruction of this country and the planet - to avoid being found out until it is too late for us even though he's already been found out and dares not admit it to himself even though he actually has. He has plenty of enablers and way too much power for a guy that ought to be in a rubber room.

Please, God, let the next year go by without him doing the penultimate act of idiocy that he is capable of, whatever it may be. Better yet, call him Home. Let us get out from under this stupid and insane man's rule short of complete destruction.

Deadbeat G-Men

AP

Telephone companies have cut off FBI wiretaps used to eavesdrop on suspected criminals because of the bureau's repeated failures to pay phone bills on time.

In at least one case, a wiretap used in a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act investigation "was halted due to untimely payment," the audit found. FISA wiretaps are used in the government's most sensitive and secretive criminal investigations, and allow eavesdropping on suspected terrorists or spies.

"We are great American patriots." said a phone company spokesperson. "We will subvert the Constitution, violate people's rights, and commit any crime the Bush administration asks us to in the name of democracy and freedom, but damned if we're gonna do it for free!"

It's just possible I made up part of that.

Yeah, that'll happen ...

...

Bush is in the Mideast for eight days, trying to bolster his goal of achieving a long-elusive peace agreement by the end of his presidency in a year. Speaking at his hotel in Jerusalem, he said again that he thinks that is possible.

...

God bless him if he can do it, but after all the bullshit they've shoveled over the past 7 years, I'm more inclined to believe it's all just hot air. The time to engage was in 2002, not a year out from his departure (hopefully).

Peace in the Holy Land will not come about from a visit by our Idiot-in-Chief. It will come when the Israelis and Palestinians make an honest attempt at it. When Israel starts dismantling its settlements in the West Bank and Hamas denounces the use of terror against Israel. Unless one of them has the courage to make the first move, or a US President has the balls to read Israel the riot act while they condemn Hamas, nothing will change.

When the Chimp leaves and we have a Dem President (not exactly a sure thing), I'll be looking to them to appoint a career Foreign Service officer as SECSTATE. Another political hack in the post won't bring about a peace in the Holy Land, it will only add to the malaise that has dominated the talks since Bush took office. Flash won't do it, substantive diplomacy will.

I can't wait until the professionals are in charge again. I'm tired of our foreign policy being nothing more than a dog and pony show.

Shouda asked Jimmy ...

Good reading from Jimmy Carter (allegedly) in the Onion:

...

You better get down on your hands and knees and kiss Jimmy Carter's rosy-red Georgia-peach-picking ass and beg me to run your fucking country again, because there's no way I'm ever gonna come to you fuck-knobs and politely ask you if I might please be a presidential candidate in your precious fuckin' election. So you can just bite my cock. I've had it with you jerkoffs and your jerkoff candidates.

...

Oh, what's that I hear? The weather's all screwy? You got a global warming problem? Boo-fucking-hoo! I was telling you morons to turn off your lights and unplug all your shit at night to conserve energy in 19-fuckin'-75, for chrissake. Gee, I wonder what woulda happened if we'd all switched to solar power like I fucking did back when we had a fucking chance to do something about it. Think we'd still be sucking Saudi Arabia's dick like a five-dollar whore? I sure as fuck didn't get no fancy Oscar for that little spiel, though, did I? No. But Al Gore, that cum-sucking pig, steals the shit from me and now he's the greatest thing since Jesus Christ made a fucking sandwich.

Well, he can lick my asshole right after George W. Bush, that fuck.

...

Heh ...

Big tip o' the Brain to Dr. Attaturk (Podiatrist to the Stars).

Spare me ...

International incident? They're fucking motor boats. A couple little boats and guys with AKs a threat to a cruiser, destroyer, and frigate? Were I the captian, I'd put a Marine sharpshooter at the rail with a rifle. End of problem.

Oo-rah!

I just couldn't resist this. Some excerpts from the Guidebook for Marines referenced in the post below about Blackwater:

During your early training you learned the Creed of the United States Marine, My Rifle. In that creed is included a solemn promise to hit, for it is only the hits that count. Every Marine has made the same pledge. Every Marine has been trained as a rifleman, for it is the rifleman who must close with and destroy the enemy.

Each item of equipment in the modern assault force - from the multimillion dollar aircraft carrier to the least expensive radio battery; every highly skilled Marine - from a jet pilot to the operator of a small portable radio - exists to get the Marine rifleman in position to close with and destroy the enemy. Once there, the job done will depend on how well you know your rifle, the care you give it, and the manner in which you use it.

I don't care if a Marine's job is wipin' bugs off a plane's windshield. He may be a little lacking in the finer points of infantry tactics, but he has a clean rifle and is probably qualified Expert with it.

The rifle and bayonet, in the hands of a Marine, become a deadly combination of spear, club, sword, and shield. At night this combination weapon can kill silently and with surprise. In hand-to-hand fighting, when the rifle cannot be reloaded and the use of grenades would be impractical, it is the decisive weapon. At these times, the aggressive bayonet fighter will win.

The assault is the critical moment of any battle. A vigorous bayonet assault, executed by Marines eager to drive home cold steel, can strike terror into the ranks of the enemy. Skill and confidence in the ability to use the bayonet give a Marine the fortitude to make a bayonet assault.

I don't think they've changed the bayonet part of that book since it worked so well at Belleau Wood. Don't fix it if it ain't broke. I know for a fact that a bayonet charge, complete with lotsa crazy yelling, will scare the crap out of a saloon fulla Squids...

Some things never change. The rifles and bayonets these days are a little too short and light for my prehistoric taste, but the young Jarheads of today will manage.

Blackwater used CS gas on U.S. troops

From Raw Story:

Blackwater security contractors employed in Iraq dropped a blinding riot-control gas on Iraqi civilians and US military personnel on a busy Baghdad street in May 2005, according to the reporter who first broke the NSA wiretapping scandal in the New York Times.

From NYT:

“Blackwater teams in the air and on the ground were preparing a secure route near a checkpoint to provide passage for a motorcade,” Ms. Tyrrell said in an e-mail message. “It seems a CS gas canister was mistaken for a smoke canister and released near an intersection and checkpoint.”

"Mistaken' my ass. I went and looked up the markings for CS grenades in an old (1979, still about 20 years newer than the one they sold me! Heh.) Guidebook for Marines. CS grenades are marked 'RIOT CS' and smoke grenades are marked 'SMOKE' with the top and bottom of the device the same color as the smoke it will produce. I'm assuming, and yes I know that's dangerous, that larger canisters are similarly marked.

I've experienced CS gas in the 'gas chamber' training in the Marine Corps. At best, it's very unpleasant. The contents of your sinuses void all over your shirt front, your eyes water, it makes anything moist or mucus-y sting like the blazes, and any moisture you may encounter for hours afterward will reactivate any residue and it will happen all over again. Also, the version of The Marines Hymn that they make you sing while all this is going on is not exactly on par with that of The Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

At worst, depending on concentration and length of exposure, it can be fatal.

“It is not allowed as a method or means of warfare,” said Michael Schmitt, professor of international law at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I. “There are very, very strict restrictions on the use of CS gas in a war zone.”

Except for Blackwater, of course. They are above any and all laws they choose to ignore by presidential fiat, it seems, just like him.

Officers and soldiers who were hit by the CS gas, some of whom asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the incident, have described it with frustration. They said no weapons were being fired or any other violence that might have justified Blackwater’s response.

In a personal journal posted online the day of the incident, Captain Clark provided a detailed description of what happened and included photos.

After reporting the incident to his superiors, Captain Clark wrote, a convoy that the helicopter was protecting showed up. Because the gas caused a “complete traffic jam in front of our checkpoint,” the captain wrote, “armored cars in the convoy made a U-turn — and threw another CS grenade.”

“It just seemed incredibly stupid,” he wrote. “The only thing we could figure out was for some reason, one of them figured that CS would somehow clear traffic. Why someone would think a substance that makes your eyes water, nose burn and face hurt would make a driver do anything other than stop is beyond me.”

Army Staff Sgt. Kenny Mattingly also was puzzled. “We saw the Little Bird (Blackwater helicopter) come and hover right in front of the gate, and I saw one of the guys dropping a canister,” Sergeant Mattingly said in an interview. “There was no reason for dropping the CS gas. We didn’t hear any gunfire or anything. There was no incident under way.”

I have wondered for some time how come no Blackwater convoy has been wasted by the insurgents as payback or just an object lesson. Now my wonder extends to our own troops. Anybody who uses riot control agents on me in such a cavalier manner better stand by for a ram.

I would like to remind our GIs and Marines of three things to keep in mind when dealing with mercenaries:

1. They have better body armor than you do. Go for head and crotch shots.

2. Sight alignment and trigger squeeze.

3. There is no problem that cannot be solved by the application of high explosives.

Addendum:

While I was lookin' up stuff, I found an interesting site on U.S. military equipment in Iraq at Wikileaks.

Doolittle to Doo even less

AP via Raw Story

Republican Rep. John Doolittle, who is under investigation in a congressional lobbying scandal, plans to announce Thursday that he'll retire from Congress at the end of his current term, according to a Republican official who spoke with Doolittle.

Don't let the door hit ya in the ass on the way out. I got a nice seaside retirement spot picked out for ya, John.

Bill and John

p m carpenter's commentary

Of course if Hillary were really convinced that the country needs experience above all other qualifications, she would have endorsed former congressman, former cabinet secretary, former United Nations ambassador and present Governor Bill Richardson from the git-go.

As she got up every morning, devoting her tender thoughts exclusively to how she could help you, she simply would have initialed Bill's resume and sent a check.

Yet now, it appears, Bill is headed permanently for parts West, thereby narrowing the Democratic field to three, and leading to one final thought: In the run-up to the showdown of Feb. 5, you're going to start hearing the less-than admirable word "spoiler" in regular connection to the remaining fringe candidate, John Edwards.

I'm sorry to see Richardson drop out, but it's been obvious for quite some time that he didn't have a chance. Qualifications and resumé aren't essential to the office of the president. Look at what we've got now. It's all about your political machine.

So long, Bill. Go back to beautiful Santa Fe and relax. Stop in at the Blue Corn and have a Shepherd's Pie for me, Christmas style*.

One down, one to go...

Should you happen to be an Edwards supporter, I hasten to add that I use the descriptive "fringe" not as an insult, but as a mere matter of fact. John is not going to win this thing -- period -- not by delegates, not by brokering, not by any political miracle ever revealed to mankind.

It's over, John, and that's just a political reality. That may be good, may be bad, but either way, that's the way the open field has broken.

Perhaps if Mr. Obama were to whisper sweet vice-presidential promises in your ear, you will reconsider your commitment to finishing the marathon. As a co-candidate of "change," your (as many would read it) heroic withdrawal and subsequent Obama-endorsement over the Democratic personification of Bush 2000 would swiftly decide this race -- and that's hardly a mere booby prize.

You're a young man, John. You'll still be a young man in 2016. It's the smart play -- even smarter than Hillary's.

Carpenter may be right. I don't particularly like it, but the handwriting may be on the wall and this is the way to get Edwards into the White House, even if it's down the hall from the Oval Office. He shouldn't give up quite yet though, at least until Obama offers him a spot on the ticket.

Edwards will be 63 in 2016. It's comforting to know that's 'still young' since I'll be 63 in '08.

*In New Mexico, everything comes with chile sauce. The question is always asked, "Red or Green?". If you like both, as I do, you reply "Christmas style".

Wyoming to Rest of U.S.: "Oh Yeah? Well Screw You Too!"

The Specious Report

The people of the great State of Wyoming don't appreciate being left out of this past week's media frenzy. "Hey, we had a primaries here," insisted Governor David D. Freudenthal. "Where was everybody?"

"Where were all the satellite trucks? Where were the constant annoying phone calls from pollsters? Where was the millions of dollars from TV and radio ads?" the Governor asked.

"What happened to the influx of volunteers and reporters? All our hotels were empty. And what about campaign signs and mailers? All our printing presses were just gathering dust," Freudenthal insisted.

Wyoming's Democratic primary will be held in March. The Governor warns there may be serious consequences if the State is ignored again, even hinting that he may close the borders entirely.

Ya think anybody'll notice?

How about a raise?

How is it the most useless group of people in the nation has the privilege to give themselves a raise? If Congress got paid what they deserve, they'd be standing on line, waiting for their unemployment checks.

Quote of the Day

Maru:

C'mon, admit it: no matter what your feelings are regarding Hillary, some part of you had to love hearing that she won in New Hampshire last night, just for the fact that it probably made every freetard and ditto-monkey's tiny little heads explode in rage.

Most certainly!

Polar Opposites

Click to embiggen

The difference is, we care about polar bears and want them to survive.

Only in New York

God, I love this city:

NEW YORK -- Two men were arrested Tuesday after wheeling a dead man through the streets in an office chair to a check-cashing store and trying to cash his Social Security check, police said.

David J. Dalaia and James O'Hare pushed Virgilio Cintron's body from the Manhattan apartment O'Hare and Cintron shared about a block away to Pay-O-Matic, spokesman Paul Browne said witnesses told police.

"The witnesses saw the two pushing the chair with Cintron flopping from side to side and the two individuals propping him up and keeping him from flopping from side to side," Browne said.

...

You know, when something raises eyebrows in NYC, it's gotta be good. If they'da left him in a double-parked car in a bus lane, nobody would have noticed. Heh ...

...

A police detective who was having lunch at a restaurant next to the check-cashing store noticed a crowd forming around Cintron's body and "it's immediately apparent to him that Cintron is dead," Browne said.

...

And I bet people were standing around arguing about it too.

"Look at that guy, he's dead."

"No he's not, they're performance artists."

"He doesn't seem to be breathing."

"He's a mime, that's it!"

"Maybe they're medical students? Is it Hell Week at Columbia?"

I'm surprised a brownie from Traffic didn't put a ticket on him for blocking the sidewalk.