Ack ...

I seldom use the desktop computer in the house, mostly working with the laptop since I set up the WiFi. I notice that now my laser mouse is doing something very annoying. Double-clicking when I want single-click ... intermittently but getting more regular. Not good when attempting to steal quotes or make links. Back to the laptop. A new mouse can wait until after the holidays.

More whoring ...

Not for me this time. I realize that since I started posting over at The Practical Press, my long-winded chapters really glom up the page. Most of the folks who submit stuff are short story writers [and poets, can't forget them, and songwriters too] and that gets sandwiched in between my crap. So, to that end, below are links to the short stories and musical creations in between the chapters of my saga of war and intrigue in the 22nd Century. Good stuff and I urge you to click on the links.

Farquiar, the Dragon.

The Preacher's Son

Small Town Boys - Chapter 39

I got a hold on you tonight.

Ode to Lost Flakes

Airplane Story

University. Of Massachusetts, please.

Just Like Looking Through Heaven. Or something.

A Fable

Parking Lot

Fine detective work!

Mouse Story

Visibility

Presidentials

Right now, I don't give a shit who's running for President in '08. But Bill Richardson raised his score a few points:

The leading advocate for escalating the war is Senator John McCain. I have served with John in Congress and I respect him. But John McCain is wrong, dead wrong to think that we can solve Iraq's political crisis through military escalation.

Anybody who'll call bullshit on that spineless weasel gets a pat on the back from me.

Twits

Paraphrasing Gen. Jack Keane on Little George: "We should put together a socio-economic package for Iraq that will help them get on their feet."

Me: And who's gonna pay for it, twit? A half-trillion dollars already and we have nothing to show for it. I don't know about anybody else, but I'm sick of throwing my hard-earned money into that sandpit.

It would have been nice if we put it in place as soon as we got to Baghdad but we blew that chance. Doing it now won't make a damn bit of difference. No more money, no more American lives, no more stalling. Bring 'em home and STFU.

What he hath wrought ...

Brother Bulldog has two family members home from Iraq for whom he's trying to get help. As I've said here many, many times, just because you come home physically intact doesn't mean you're okay:

...

Now, he's been home for some time and is struggling with that incident. It repeats itself over and over in his mind's eye all day long and into the night. He gets barely 3 hours of fitful sleep a night. He has broken up with his girlfriend over fears that he'll end up hurting her. He, like many combat veterans before him, tries to drown these thoughts and memories in alcohol each and every weekend and most every night as well. For those of you who've seen combat, be it Vietnam, Iraq during Gulf War I, any of the lesser campaigns over the years, and even some of you old-timers from Korea, you know the hell this kid is going through. How do you deal with something like this?

...

Bulldog's doing the right things but until someone with PTSD wants to get a handle on it, there's nothing he can do. Unfortunately, once someone is on the downhill spiral of drugs and alcohol, their judgment gets worse and worse. I hope ... pray ... these guys get the help they need and, with a relative like Bulldog on their side, they've got a good start.

The thing, having been down this road myself, is that none of this was necessary. All these young men and women, ours and theirs, suffer needlessly to make a few extrememly rich people even more wealthy. This is what George W. Bush and the Neocons have wrought.

...

It's stories like these that will be Bush's legacy when his presidency ends, be it by impeachment or end of term. These are the things that I hope will haunt him the rest of his life, not to mention the thousands upon thousands of dead and wounded Americans and Iraqis. Yet he will never know the pain of dealing with PTSD first-hand or having to adapt to using a wheelchair for the rest of his life because his legs were blown off in a land far away for a cause that was unjust and unneeded...

Shopping trip

It seems like about every twenty years or so, we have to buy Christmas presents for little kids. I haven't quite figured that one out yet. Anyway, Mrs. G didn't like my idea for a baby-sitting device:



Maybe it's because they're her sister's latest batch of grandkids. Maybe it's because duct tape's hard on the drywall. I coulda just gift-wrapped what I have on hand and saved us a trip, but nooo...

So over the mountains and through the woods to Carson City we did go. First to Costco, then to the exclusive boutique Tar-zhay*. Mission accomplished.

We left home in clear bright sunshine, but while we were gone the weather turned to shit. Did I mention that from Carson to my house, it's up 2500 feet, through a 7000'+ high pass down a thousand, up a thousand to another 7000'+ pass, and then down over a thousand feet in a final three-mile stretch of the steepest two lane state highway in California?

That last stretch was spent in 4-wheel-drive low gear coming down an icy mountain road with people who should have known better following too close. I didn't mind the Porsche Cayenne S too much because I'm sure he had good insurance, but I actually had to stick my arm out the window and wave "Back you people! Back, I say!" at the guy in the twenty-year-old 2WD crapcan. I flashed my brake lights at him and slid, so there wasn't going to be any stopping if an incident should occur. You can't always count on 'em sliding directly under your hitch receiver where they can't do much damage.

Go slow, leave lots of room between cars, don't touch the brakes. 4WD's for traction, not for speed. Leave earlier.

The Tacoma goes into 4WD with the click of a dash knob which I assume is hooked up to something under the truck. It's a far cry, but not removed so long in time it seems, from stopping, getting out, getting all wet, putting the hubs in, selecting "in" or "out" on one floor-mounted lever and "high" or "low" on another, and proceeding on your way in a rig with no heater to speak of, a shop rag for a defroster, cable-operated, or worse, vacuum windshield wipers, and maybe an AM radio. Good thing, too. I'm gettin' too old for that shit.

I'm very content at this stage of life to poke along at a safe pace in a comfortably heated cab with my favorite tunes coming out of the speakers, thank you.

It does seem, however, that when it took a little suffering to go places back in the old days, there was less traffic. It's probably just me.

And how did your day go?

*Actual spelling: Target.

It's Saturday night ...

A time for whoring. Chapter 10 of my novel The Captains is up at The Practical Press.

Darwinism in blossom

This should be the equivalent of throwing the skimmer in the gene pool. Only in Texas.

Broken or Broke

Smirking Chimp:

I have no idea why this story was not on the front page of every newspaper and at the top of every newscast yesterday, but it wasn't. The story ran on only one front page, that I'm aware of. And that was on the paper that broke the story, the Wall Street Journal.

...

Yesterday the WSJ's defense correspondent, Gregg Jaffe, reported that US Army officials have told the White House they are broke. Worse than broke actually. The Army, despite its $168 billion budget, is out of money and being forced to cannibalize operations, here and in the war zone, just to keep the lights on. [emphasis in original]

...

I just sat there reading this with my jaw hanging open. My grandfather told me stories like this of the German Army, after Normandy and Stalingrad, after German manufacturing resources were bombed into oblivion and there was nothing left.

Seems the Chimp has reached that milestone without help of a conquering army. All he needed was Halliburton, KBR, and the other 'mercenary corporations' who've privatized everything the military used to do. They should all swing.

Read. The. Whole. Thing. and get really pissed.

Tip o' the Brain to Xan @ CorrenteWire.

Quote of the Day

The Guardian (UK) via Maru:

What an amazing bloody catastrophe. The Bush administration's policy towards the Middle East over the five years since 9/11 is culminating in a multiple train crash. Never in the field of human conflict was so little achieved by so great a country at such vast expense. In every vital area of the wider Middle East, American policy over the last five years has taken a bad situation and made it worse.

...

Pantload

18 months ago I threw down the gauntlet:

... I'll go these warmongers one better. If Jonah Goldberg makes the attempt to enlist, so will I. I'll dust off my DD Form 214 and head down to the recruiters the same day. Regardless of the fact I already served this country for 8 years (6 active, 2 reserve), I'll go back if the man who said he'd serve (if he didn't have a family and a job) gave it his best shot...

Jonah's still sitting behind his keyboard, spewing horseshit. Today, Norbizness directs us to Dr. Cole's place where 'General' Goldberg made this prediction at about the same time I had enough of his whining about not enlisting to fight in the war he helped start:

Anyway, I do think my judgment is superior to his when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn't want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I'll bet $1,000 (which I can hardly spare right now). This way neither of us can hide behind clever word play or CV reading. If there's another reasonable wager Cole wants to offer which would measure our judgment, I'm all ears. Money where your mouth is, doc. One caveat: Because I don't think it's right to bet on such serious matters for personal gain, if I win, I'll donate the money to the USO. He can give it to the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade or whatever his favorite charity is.

With that kind of intuition and judgment, he should be putting on his fouth star by now. All these idiots who read Tom Clancy and watch 24, but who've never served, knew everything. Keep your $1000, Jonah. It'll be a lot cheaper meeting me at the recruiting office.

Outsourcing victory!

Fiore.

"'Tis a bluidy fookin' cock-up, mate..."

Yahoo!News

LONDON (AFP) - Prime Minister Tony Blair's government will hold a parliamentary debate on Britain's role in Iraq by the end of January, a cabinet member has said amid mounting pressure from war critics.

This oughta be good. Them Limeys say shit in their Parliament meetings that our pols would never have the balls to say.

A Way Forward, a Look Back

I've said elsewhere that the current mess in the Middle East can be linked directly to a couple of pistol shots fired in Sarajevo in 1914. Robert Parry, in his wisdom, stops short of that and goes back about 25 years to the start of what might be called the "Modern Era" in the unraveling of the region, and offers a look at a possible way out. An interesting short history and perspective.

The abrupt resignation of the Saudi ambassador to the United States and the postponement of George W. Bush's new Iraq policy speech mark a troubling new chapter for a U.S. strategy for the Middle East that continues to spiral toward catastrophe.

Two weeks earlier, Saudi King Abdullah summoned Vice President Dick Cheney to Riyadh to express the kingdom's displeasure with developments in Iraq, as the pro-Iranian Shiite majority gains the upper hand over the Sunni minority that dominated the country under Saddam Hussein.

The oil-rich Saudis, who represent the heart of Sunni power and influence in the Middle East, had long viewed a Sunni-led Iraq as a crucial buffer against the Shiite fundamentalists who gained control of Iran in 1979 by overthrowing the pro-U.S. Shah of Iran.

The Saudi royal family feared that Iran's austere fundamentalism could spread across the Middle East, radicalizing the Shiite populations and threatening the pampered lifestyles of the Persian Gulf's sheiks and princes. Iraq, with what was then the Arab world's strongest army, was positioned to stop that.

So, in 1980, the Saudis privately conveyed to Saddam Hussein what they claimed was a "green light" from U.S. President Jimmy Carter for Hussein to attack Iran, according to a "top secret" document that then-Secretary of State Alexander Haig used to brief President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

During the war, the Reagan administration tilted back and forth, secretly supplying weapons to both sides. CIA Director William Casey and other Reagan hard-liners privately relished how the two-sided policy let the Iraqis and Iranians kill each other while generating profits for favored arms suppliers.

But the war also created instability in the region that continues to play out to this day. Because of Iraq's war debts and Kuwait's demands for repayment, Saddam Hussein lashed out at what he saw as the Kuwaiti royal family's ingratitude, leading to his invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the U.S.-led liberation of Kuwait in 1991.

But the U.S. occupation of Iraq set off a string of unintended consequences that disrupted the power balance in the region.

Since Iran had long sheltered Iraqi Shiite leaders, Iran's Islamic fundamentalist government emerged as a big winner, extending its influence across a Shiite crescent from Tehran through Iraq and Syria to southern Lebanon.

The Saudis were counted among the big losers, seeing their buffer against Iran disintegrate and their Iraqi Sunni brethren face political marginalization and ethnic cleansing at the hands of the Shiite-dominated security forces. Resisting this stark reversal of fortune, the Sunnis fought back with a determined insurgency.

The Saudis also watched with alarm as the staunchly pro-Israeli neocons who dominated the Bush administration persuaded Bush to give the Israelis a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians, who are predominantly Sunni. The killing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank increased.

In other words, Bush is now confronting a region-wide crisis that largely resulted from the neocon strategy that he embraced in 2001. Instead of dealing narrowly with bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorists after the 9/11 attacks, Bush chose to invade Iraq and shake up the entire region.

But it now appears that Iraq was only one piece of a regional Rubik's Cube that Bush has turned and twisted with growing frustration, getting no closer to a solution and indeed making matters worse.

Way to go, Junior. If it wasn't as easy to solve Rubik's Cube as you thought it should have been, fuck it up so bad that no one else can either. Dipshit.

So, given this unfolding disaster, what are the lessons that should be learned and what might a genuine new course forward look like?

First, the American people should hold accountable everyone who advocated or enabled the Iraq War in 2002-03 - Democrats, Republicans, pundits and journalists whether they promoted the policy or just went with the flow.

Second, the U.S. press and politicians should cool the heated rhetoric about "terrorism" - and start using the word more precisely and less ideologically. The definition should be confined to intentional violence against civilians to achieve a political goal. Plus, the word should be applied evenhandedly, not as a propaganda weapon.

Third, the United States must recognize that the best way to help Israel is not always doing what the Israeli government and its influential backers demand.

Amen to that! At this point Mr. Parry goes off into cloud-cuckoo-land a little, to my way of thinking anyway, but it might work if it could happen. Go read.

Overall, the goal of this way forward would be to wind down the tensions and the hatreds, rather than ratcheting them up.

Granted, the prospects for such a peace initiative do not seem bright. It is especially hard to envision President Bush canning his tough talk in favor of peace talks.

But just as the prospects of the gallows are said to focus one's mind, it should be equally true that the likelihood of a political-military cataclysm in the oil-rich Middle East should convince Washington's policymakers to engage, finally, in some fresh thinking.

So the Saudis will back the Sunnis, and Iran will back the Shiites. So what? I think we saw a lot of that during the Cold War where the U.S. would back one side and the Soviet Union would back the other side in a whole series of "proxy wars".

The Sunnis and Shia have wanted to have it out for 1300 years. Saddam kept the lid on it, but Bush, in his infinite stupidity, gave them the 'freedom' to kill each other to their hearts' content, which is what they are doing as we speak.

And our troops are smack-dab in the middle of it.

We either gotta come down on it like a big fuckin' hammer, or get the fuck out of the way.

Bush has squandered every resource we had, from the military to public opinion, to do the former. Invading Iraq was a bad idea to begin with, and then he fucked it all up from there.

That leaves my latter option. There is no possible end result that will be good for anybody, but it's going to happen sooner or later. Hell, it's happening now, thank you Junior. Let's get the Hell out of there and leave 'em to it. We can come back later and buy our oil from the winner.

Fixing the Food Supply

This is a matter of National Security. The reasons it has not been addressed aren't so simple,but the solutions to the problem ARE.

The reason we're seeing cases of e coli pop up related to various produce isn't rocket science. E coli exists in poop and the intestines of livestock. Actually,it's not confined to just pigs and cows,but for the sake of this discussion,those two critters are the source of the problem. Actually,it's the WAY THEY ARE FARMED that's the REAL issue here.

What's happening is that the poop from these animals in factory farms is running off into the irrigation water supply. So,when the veggie farm down the road from the cow farm sprays that water on their veggies,voila! you have contamination. It is that simple. There has been some implication in the media that it's the fault of those dirty migrant farm workers. Um,nooo,it's not.

The good news is that this can be fixed. The bad news is that the industries involved have a heavy lobbying presence in Washington DC,and our federal government keeps cutting the number of inspectors,and keeps crafting legislation with zero teeth to make industry shape up.

How to fix it? Here's my take:

1)Compost the poop. Yes,that's right. The process of composting heats up the poop(or any other organic matter one chooses to compost)to the temp that it kills harmful bacteria. People will pay good money for good compost too,so it can turn a profit.

2)Limit the number of animals that can live on an acre of ground at any given moment. This allows the land itself to take care of la poop,Mother Nature is quite wise in how she handles such things. Combine that with a simple composting operation and I'd betcha this e coli problem would drop dramatically.

3)Stop allowing agribusiness to make it's own rules for operation. This is a problem in DC,and not just with agribusiness,as we know. Time after time,big bidness has proven it will NOT do the right thing when no one is looking. They have had more than enough chances to clean up their act. Like a child who is not ready to be on their own,we,via our government will need to take back the reigns of control. It might be worth our while to write passionate and well thought out letters to Speaker Pelosi about this,as well as Senate Majority Leader Reid. We need to bug the fuck out of them until this is addressed,and it needs to be framed as a Security issue,not just as a public health crisis.

4)Require testing of irrigation water sources regularly. That means we'll need more inspectors and more inforcement of simple health considerations. The cost of this is much less than food suppliers having to settle multiple lawsuits related to food poisoning.

5)Ultimately,there is going to have to be a movement back to individual communities providing much of their own food. This movement needs to happen quietly and with a purpose. Big bidness can,has,and will try to stop this,make no mistake about it. Communities will have to be innovative,creative and fiercely defensive of these moves to regain control,but it can be done. There is a myth that commerical farming practices are more efficient,which is crap. Monoplanting corn,soybeans,grains,and other crops is not the answer. If it were,there would be no hunger problem.

6)Here's some reliable resources you can consult if this topic interests you:

Books:
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
Hope's Edge by Anna and Frances Moore Lappe'
Diet for a Small Planet by Frances Moore Lappe'
The Rodale Book of Composting by Rodale Press
World Hunger: 12 Myths by Francis Moore Lappe',Joseph Collins and Peter Rosset
Grub: Ideas for an Urban Organic Kitchen by Anna Lappe' and Bryant Terry
Rats in the Grain: The Dirty Tricks of Archer Daniels Midland,Supermarket to the World by James Lieber
The Informant: A True Story by Kurt Eichenwald

DVD:
Supersize Me
Bad Seed: The Truth About Our Food
PBS Frontline: Modern Meat

And that's my short list. I have errands to handle today,if there's an interest,I'll post some links to online resources later today by updating this post. This issue is a passion of mine,but alot of people roll their eyes and shut down when I bring it up.

Lastly,if there is ever a crisis,where the grid goes down in parts of the country or some weather related disaster or natural disaster(or a man made one)happens,people in this country,even affluent folks ,WILL starve because so few people have the slightest clue about how to grow,store and prepare their food properly. Big cities are the most vulnerable places. This doesn't have to happen,but Americans need to stop being so fucking lazy and clueless. As I said,this is a matter of national security and should be treated as such.

Quote of the Day

As I head out the door. Moderate:

...OK...here's the deal... if you don't have the balls to say...send every ship, plane, truck, helicopter and bicycle over there, load our kids up...and get them the fuck outta there...then FUCK YOU!

...

Simple, easy to understand and fuck the Saudis. Lata ...

Rethug 'leadership'

So first it was scallions (green onions). Then it was the white onions. Now it's the lettuce.

WASHINGTON - Lettuce was the most likely source of an outbreak of E. coli linked to Taco Bell, federal health officials said Wednesday.

Taco Bell had said contaminated green onions were responsible for the cases of food poisoning - 71 confirmed cases of E. coli in five states, primarily New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, as of Wednesday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

...

For the people who are supposedly 'keepin' us safer', how is it we can't secure our food supply, let alone figure out exactly how people are being poisioned? Does any government agency do a compentent job anymore? This is what happens when you reward brown-nosing ideologues instead of competent administrators and managers.

I tell ya ...

If I made a video game where you can gun down proseletyzing Jesus freaks when they block your way on the sidewalk or follow you down the street trying to hand you pamphlets, there'd be more screaming and yelling and protesting than you've ever seen.

Personally, I don't like when somebody designates me a target, and they do because the Devil will be wearing an overcoat before I 'come to Jesus'. If you want your ass 'Left Behind' I can arrange that as well. Many years ago, my dad nearly sent two Jehovah's Witnesses forth with his riding lawnmower (funny as hell to watch as he chased them around the yard). I believe in upholding family traditions.

I'm tired of people being able to say and do whatever they want because they're doing it in 'Jesus' name'. Fuck you all and keep your mystical bullshit away from me. And just a note to Wal-Mart, who's hawking this drivel. You refuse stock my books because of the sex scenes, yet you actively promote this bullshit? Even if you suddenly decided to stock 10 copies of each of my books, I'd tell you to go fuck yourselves at this point. After this, I wouldn't want to be associated with you in any way.

Couldn'ta done this ...

Before the election?

Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) has apparently suffered a mild stroke, according to various news sources.

Political Wire's "Insider" blog reports that Johnson "is speaking and is expected to be fine," with more news upcoming.[..] (T)he office did issue the following statement to the press:

...

Listen to me. I might sound cold and shit, but this is far more important than one man. I don't care if they have to shove a pole up his ass and have strings making his lips move, his ass better be on the Senate Floor come Jan 4. Even if he drops dead tomorrow, they'd better pull a Weekend at Bernie's come January. Times are too critical to give the Rethugs an inch and as long as Cheney can cast the tiebraker, I want a majority, slim as it is. Hope he feels better but right now I'm concerned about our nation a little bit more.

Update:

And Wordsmith called me crass in comments? Heh ...

Berra v. Bush

Observations from this New Yorker stuck in traffic. One of the most beloved people in New York is Yankee great Yogi Berra. Yogi can say shit like:

And they give ya cash, which is almost as good as money.

But we know Yogi and deep down we know, Yogi gets it. And then we have our President:

You never know what your history is going to be like until long after you're gone.

And you realize that he doesn't. But then, Yogi never wanted to be President.

Update:

Holden's thinking along the same lines today too.