Resident Geezer Opines.

This blurb is from the bottom of the page on my daily NYT e-mail. "The Day In History".

On Oct. 24, 1945, the United Nations officially came into existence as its charter took effect

The UN is younger than I am! I'm in way better shape. They better start taking better care of themselves.

I read it in the Sunday papers . . .

And while you're reading your Sunday paper, check out how many newspaper endorsements have come Kerry's way, especially from papers who'd endorsed Bush in 2000. Thanks to Xan for the link.

Wolcott

In short, Ann Coulter is a waste of good air, but she can run like a hooker being chased by a couple vice cops. Gord turned me on to Wolcott and he's become a regular read for me.

Ich bin von Himmel gefallen!

I love it. Stolen from Corrente:

Bush's Nazi name:

Dubya von Himmel.

No more Bush?

No more Bush. Via Skippy.

Just When You Think You've Seen Everything....

If I told you about all the weird things people do to pumpkins without a picture, you'd think I was crazy. So here are some pictures at Extreme Pumpkins. There are several to look at. Don't miss the Mooning Pumpkin, an apropos political statement if I've ever seen one!

God And Sex

This Op-Ed piece by Nicholas Kristof from today's NYTimes:

So when God made homosexuals who fall deeply, achingly in love with each other, did he goof?

Over the last couple of months, I've been researching the question of how the Bible regards homosexuality. Social liberals tend to be uncomfortable with religious arguments, but that is the ground on which political battles are often decided in America - as when a Texas governor, Miriam "Ma" Ferguson, barred the teaching of foreign languages about 80 years ago, saying, "If English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for us."

Texas Governor. It figures.

While homosexuality never made the Top 10 lists of commandments, a plain reading of the Book of Leviticus is that male anal sex is every bit as bad as other practices that the text condemns, like wearing a polyester-and-cotton shirt (Leviticus 19:19).

Oh, the horror!

Likewise, Jesus praises those who make themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven, but conservative Christians rarely lead the way with self-castration.

A pity, no?

Or there's another solution. Paul disapproves of marriage except for the sex-obsessed, saying that it is best "to remain unmarried as I am." So if we're going to cherry-pick biblical phrases and ignore the central message of love, then perhaps we should just ban marriage altogether?

A Harley-Davidson V-Twin has a front cylinder and a rear cylinder and the same piston will fit in either one. The builder decides.

In Memoriam

On Oct. 23, 1983, a suicide truck-bombing at Beirut International Airport in Lebanon killed 241 U.S. Marines and sailors; a near-simultaneous attack on French forces killed 58 paratroopers

The Marines were in the 22nd Marine Amphibious Unit which consisted of the 1st Battalion, 8th Marines, my old regiment , and attached units, all from the 2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Semper Fidelis, my brothers.

Saturday Cattle Dog Blogging

Mrs. F's little princess. Shayna the Australian Cattle Dog.

Use it or lose it

Stole the whole thing from Wampum:

Writing in today's Le Monde, Rémy Ourdan sees Falluja as a major battle simply waiting. Some new facts. On the order of 1,500 Arab fighters are present in Falluja. On the order of 90% of the women, children and elderly have left Falluja for Baghdad or the towns surrounding Falluja. On the order of 80% of the men of fighting age of Falljua are now under arms.

There are 83 minarets (mosques) and 120,000 residences in Falluja.

Will Bush order the attack before November 2nd, or will he order the attack after November 2nd, and will the outcome of November 2nd matter?

The smart money (Juan Cole) is that Bush will wait until after November 2nd to flatten Falluja. My guess is that Bush won't wait. He just lost Ohio (Nader's off the ballot), and the newest numbers show he's lost Maine too, and he's a high-risk gambler.

Back when MB and the kids and I were enjoying the quiet of Disneyworld the week after 9/11, the radio was alive with chatter about follow-on attacks. I didn't give it a moment's thought. Use or lose, and holding some part of the attack inventory while the feds went non-linear and bagged every Arab under every bed was a recipe for "lose".

I think the same is true of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsford-Wolfowitz-Rice-Feith-Scooter-Hadley-Bolton-Luti-Fowler-(Perle)-Negroponte-(Bremer)-Garner gang of terrorists. The effects, domestic and Iraqi, are certain if the order is given before the end of the month, and uncertain after the third day of next month.

It is use or lose, and use always trumps lose.

Maybe the October surprise?

CIA = KGB

Read this and tell me what you think. Via Kos. This is what got me:

One of the aides, whose identity Knight Ridder is not disclosing because he served under cover, has been "going around telling people they are to fire 80 to 90 people" in the Directorate of Operations, the CIA's covert arm, according to a former official.

First, notice what a reputable news agency does when it knows the name of an undercover operator, as opposed to that pompous prick Robert Novak (Remember Valerie Plame?). Second, no good can come of partisan hacks taking over the Operations Directorate. How long do you think it will be before they're running operations in this country to protect the Republican agenda?

Unbelievable

Via Corrente:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. Army is laying the groundwork to let Halliburton Co. keep several billion dollars paid for work in Iraq that Pentagon auditors say is questionable or unsupported by proper documentation, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

According to Pentagon documents reviewed by the Journal, the Army has acknowledged that the Houston-based company might never be able to account properly for some of its work, which has been probed amid accusations that Halliburton's Kellogg Brown & Root unit overbilled the government for some operations in Iraq.

The company has hired a consulting firm to estimate what Halliburton's services should cost, the report said.

[. . .]

So, I can steal several billion dollars worth of services and if I hide it well enough, you'll let me keep it? What a country! How fucked up is this? Not only did they get a no-bid contract (assuring they could make an excellent profit), but then they pad prices even more (greedy motherfuckers), and when they're caught at it, no one goes to jail. Instead, the Army just throws up its collective hands and says 'never mind'. These are billions of your dollars, ladies and gents. What are you gonna do about it on 2 Nov?

Kerry In Reno

Read what the locals were concerned about prior to Big John's visit to Northern Nevada in the Reno Gazette-Urinal. I'll betcha the topics are different from what they're be in, oh, I don't know, Long Island, maybe? By the time I posted this he was long gone, but no news of his speech yet. There was a short bite on KOLO-TV about Yucca Mountain, and a couple of accidental cutaways back to Ed Pearce, the newsman, standing on the floor of The Lawlor Events Center at UNR while the clip was playing. He looked like he wanted to go home. Will update in the morning.

Update: 11:42pm OWT

Early report on Kerry's speech.

“God, it is good to be here,” said Kerry, who marveled at the view of the snow-covered Sierra Nevada as his plane landed at Reno-Tahoe International Airport.

“I saw Mt. Rose. I saw Slide Mountain. I saw the snow and said, ‘I’m in God’s country, this is great,’ ” he said.

“I always check the best bet when I come into Nevada. The best bet — single-deck blackjack. The worst bet, Bush’s health care plan — flu shots,” he said to cheers.

It is impressive to see it from the air. If it isn't God's country, at least you can see it from here.

“The only thing I want is for John Kerry to be elected and Bush thrown out,” said Janette Sherman, who came to see Kerry from her home in Truckee, Calif.

I don't know the gal, but she's definitely my homey.

More updates as the situation develops. Geez, sounds like I'm covering a train wreck. On the old B&C short line, maybe.

10-4, Back Door...

This Web-only commentary on the draft is by a major babe, Elinor Clift of Newsweek, the only woman with enough stones to go toe-to-toe with 'The Shouters' for years on PBS.

Bobby Muller was a Marine lieutenant leading an assault in Vietnam when a bullet severed his spine in April 1969. He spent almost a year recovering in a Veterans Hospital in the Bronx, where the woes of other battlefield casualties echoed his own and led him to dedicate his life to what he calls “war-related work.”

George W. Bush says he opposes the draft, but he supports an adventuresome foreign policy. Where will he get the bodies to put on the front lines? John Kerry says there’s already a back-door draft through extended tours and call-ups, and he’s raised the specter of a draft should Bush win a second term. The attack rattles Republicans because it has plausibility, and it speaks to the overstretched military and the issue of national sacrifice. Bush wants to wage a perpetual war against terrorists while not demanding any sacrifice from the broader public. The soldiers are sacrificing enormously in this war while the rest of the population, particularly the wealthy, is getting off.

Muller is white-haired now at 58, but he is pictured along with Kerry in “Going Upriver,” the new documentary about Kerry’s Vietnam experience and his leadership in the protest movement. “There was a lot of anger about him because he wasn’t more radical,” says Muller. “Remember, we were a bunch of dirt bags—longhaired and bearded. He was more presentable to the Establishment. I knew Kerry was going to run for president. Coming out of that war, it’s not surprising you dedicate yourself to political work. People died, and it was wrong.”

Good article. Go read it.

Ms. Clift would blush and tingle all over if she knew what she does to me!

The Fourth Debate...

‘Mission Accomplished’
President Bush wins secret fourth debate after Kerry fails to materialize
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY

By Andy Borowitz
Newsweek
Updated: 3:03 p.m. ET Oct. 19, 2004

Oct. 19 - President George W. Bush notched his first debate victory early Sunday morning, winning handily in a fourth presidential debate that was kept secret from his Democratic rival, Sen. John Kerry.

The debate, which was held at 2 AM Sunday morning in the basement of the White House and moderated by Fox News personality Bill O'Reilly, was a must-win affair in the eyes of the Bush campaign strategists who planned it.

"We knew that we needed to win at least one debate going into November," said Bush strategist Karl Rove. "Mission accomplished."

While aides to Kerry howled that the debate did not count since their candidate was kept totally in the dark about its time and place, Rove said, "They can spin this any way they want, but a win is a win."

The White House today released a videotape of the president's triumphal fourth debate, showing Bush gesturing towards an empty podium with Kerry nowhere in sight.

"Looks like my opponent didn't make it today," a smirking Bush says on the tape. "I guess he must be back in Massachusetts, busy being a liberal and such."

Four minutes into the matchup, O'Reilly declares Bush the winner and abruptly excuses himself, saying, "I've got a few phone calls to make."

Elsewhere, television station owner Sinclair Broadcasting found itself at the center of yet another controversy today after it ordered all of its affiliates to broadcast a film titled "John Kerry: Portrait of a Serial Killer."

Andy Borowitz is the author of The Borowitz Report, and the winner of the National Press Club's humor award. For more, go to http://www.borowitzreport.com/.
© 2004 Newsweek, Inc.

Cross Dresser

This article on Slate by Richard Rushfield is pretty funny.

As a political and journalistic experiment, I decided to see how people who live in primarily one-party areas would react when faced with a living, breathing member of the opposition. I appointed myself an ambassador to bridge the Red-Blue divide and ventured into each side's territory dressed in the T-shirt, campaign button, and tote bag of the other. (A baseball cap, I decided, pushed the ensemble one step over the line, making me look a raving nut about to start yelling obscenities.)

Anybody who thinks a 'gimme cap' is part of an 'ensemble' is definitely going to be carrying a 'tote bag'!

In my Kerry-Edwards shirt, I enter Red America certain that I am on the verge of inciting to rage a gang of angry yachtsmen who would soon be strapping me and my lefty leisurewear to their mizzenmast. Instead, I encounter only shades of indifference—head shaking, "crazy idiot" expressions from older, very wealthy, very white folks in Newport Beach.

Driving home, I rip off my Bush-Cheney shirt so I can walk the streets of my neighborhood unjeered at and without terrifying little children. Reflecting on the sting of being called "asshole" during my travels through Blue America, I wonder: If I were truly a Bush supporter, how long would I be able to endure a life filled with epithets before I gave up on the shirt? Changing into a nonpartisan brown Gap polo, I breathe a sigh of relief that I will never have to find out.

This guy better be damn thankful he lives in L.A. and not somewhere people would really give a shit which candidate's apparel he wears. The 'tote bag' alone would get him punched out in some 'red' states!

I wear a "Veterans For Kerry" button on my ball cap, and no one has ever said anything other than to agree and express their support. Maybe it's because it's on a "United States Marine Corps" cap. Maybe they're afraid I'll nut up on 'em if they diss Kerry or call me a name. Maybe they're right.

S.O.S.

Ha! Gotcha! No, we're not sinking. Yet. Nor are we commenting on that military delicacy, "creamed beef on toast", that all former servicemen know and love. This time it means 'Secretary Of State' and President-to-be Kerry is in a quandary:

Kerry, who would name a national security team a few weeks after the election, is said by campaign sources to be under a fair amount of pressure to pick Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) or Richard Holbrooke to help repair global alliances and attract new allies to assist in Iraq. Both men are seasoned diplomats, ambitious and close friends and political advisers to Kerry. And both clearly want the job.

That's a tough decision. Both men are qualified for the job in spades. I think I am leaning towards Ambassador Holbrooke because of his experience at the U.N., but that's just me.

There's more on this, and other Cabinet positions besides, in this article in today's Washington Post.

I think it's a good thing that Kerry is confident enough to be doing this shit now. It shows he can plan ahead.

Now I've made myself hungry. I'm going up on the roof and get the other ingredient I need for some SOS!

Hunting

Never was a hunter. Nothing against anybody who is, but after chasing a couple North Korean snipers into a dark tunnel under the DMZ, everything else pales in terms of the rush. But there are hunters and there are penis-deficient assholes. Go read this at TBogg and you'll be aware of the difference.

Old No. 7

No, I'm not talking about Jack Daniels'. I'm talking about Number Seven World Trade Center. From WABC in NY:

Nina Pineda reports from the topping-out ceremony.

I remember standing down here three years ago and reporting that, sadly, 7 World Trade had collapsed. And now the last to fall is the first to reach its top height, and a month ahead of schedule.

All eyes were raised as the final beam was raised atop 7 World Trade Center, 741 feet in the sky. A symbolic reminder of the city's resilience, and determination.

[. . .]

Within minutes of the attack engineers, carpenters, and iron workers, rushed to the scene to help. Many have been at the site ever since, first with the recovery effort, and now with the rebuilding.

Jack Smith, Iron Worker: "We're looking down in that hole, and thinking of all the lives that were lost there. And this one was rubble at one time. And now, life is coming back."

[. . .]

Say what you will about New Yorkers, but we ALWAYS rise to the occasion(well, except for the Yankees). It's just the way we are. We tell each other to fuck off constantly, but when something needs doing, it gets done. When we need to join together, we do. You should have seen us on 9/11, our worst and finest hour.

Osama who?

From WaPo via DemVet:

In the second half of March 2002, as the Bush administration mapped its next steps against al Qaeda, Deputy CIA Director John E. McLaughlin brought an unexpected message to the White House Situation Room. According to two people with firsthand knowledge, he told senior members of the president's national security team that the CIA was scaling back operations in Afghanistan.

That announcement marked a year-long drawdown of specialized military and intelligence resources from the geographic center of combat with Osama bin Laden. As jihadist enemies reorganized, slipping back and forth from Pakistan and Iran, the CIA closed forward bases in the cities of Herat, Mazar-e Sharif and Kandahar. The agency put off an $80 million plan to train and equip a friendly intelligence service for the new U.S.-installed Afghan government. Replacements did not keep pace with departures as case officers finished six-week tours. And Task Force 5 -- a covert commando team that led the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants in the border region -- lost more than two-thirds of its fighting strength.

The commandos, their high-tech surveillance equipment and other assets would instead surge toward Iraq through 2002 and early 2003, as President Bush prepared for the March invasion that would extend the field of battle in the nation's response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

So, as we all knew, Afghanistan was just a stepping stone toward Iraq. A convenient excuse is all. Nobody at 1600 ever gave a shit about Osama, instead they probably put him on the WH Christmas (Ramadan?) card list. Remember how they showed the Palestinians in the Holy Land dancing around in celebration after 9/11? They were doing the same dance of joy in the White House. 9/11 was the biggest gift anyone ever gave to Bush & Co.

And Jo at DemVet has the best line:

On November 3rd, perhaps we'll start to get our country back, and out of the hands of the worlds oldest pre-adolescent brain-damaged teenager.