Bad Voodoo's War

If you missed "Bad Voodoo's War" on PBS the other night, please watch it. Well worth a look.

The producer gave some National Guard troops a buncha video cameras and let them do the filming. Their duties consisted mostly of convoy escort, which is weeks of boredom punctuated by moments of terror.

There'll be another episode as the unit is in Iraq 'til May. Barring stop-loss, of course.

Update:

Belay 'There'll be another episode'. Bum scoop, my bad. Please read the nice 'comment' we got from the show's producer and bookmark accordingly to keep up with the platoon.

An Impressive Display Of French Canadian Anti-Tank Technology

Barbados

We took a couple tours, to a distillery and a brewery. You sense a pattern here? Heh ... It was nice to sample some of the local offerings.

Also, Queen Mary is a romantic, storied ship. We take advantage.

We're in St. Lucia today and tomorrow I'll tell you why you'd never get me back here unless a cruise ship we were on just happened to stop there. Wouldn't go ashore again though. Oy!

Movers and Sheikhs

Transcript of an online interview with Steve Coll during his book tour:

Steve Coll, author and president of the New America Foundation, was online Tuesday, April 1, at 3 p.m. ET to discuss his new book, "The Bin Ladens (review by Richard Clarke - G)," which was reviewed in Book World.

New York, N.Y.: Chances of ever catching Bin Laden? Zero or less than zero?

Steve Coll: I think the chances are better now than they have been for a while. His popularity in Pakistan has fallen dramatically because he is seen as responsible for a wave of suicide bombings on Pakistani soil. These hunts in Pakistan have ended in the past usually because somebody drops a dime on the fugitive. That seems more likely now, because of his falling popularity, but of course, you can't predict these things with any great confidence.

_______________________

Washington D.C.: Biggest Bush mistake re: Osama?

Steve Coll: Giving Osama the narrative of total global war that Osama wanted.

Bush should have never been allowed to rise beyond Austin. Fucking Texas up is one thing, nobody cares, but his unbelievable arrogance and incompetence, not to mention an evil ideology, has fucked up the world. Bin Laden is no damned good either, but he's ten times smarter than our so-called president.

The End Of Empire?

This is pretty good. TomDispatch has excerpts from a new book by Howard Zinn along with an animated video and cartoon thumbnails.

In honor of publication day, Tomdispatch offers the equivalent of a little online extravaganza. Below, you can read Zinn's essay on how he first learned about the American Empire; and you can also click here for two special treats. You can view an animated video, using some of the book's art, with voiceover by none other than Viggo Mortensen. (Think of it as Lord of the Rings, Part IV: The American Mordor Chronicles.) Finally, if you look below the video on that same page, you'll see an autobiographical section of the new book, focusing on Zinn's early years. (Click on each illustration to view a single page of text.) Have fun. Tom

As with anything involving TomDispatch, take a lunch.

Free in-vagina Wi-Fi?

Mark Morford

A hooker for every senator
Imagine a world with more sexually open, sensual, happily libidinous politicians. Wait, can you?

Enjoy. On the off chance that politicians will overcome hypocrisy and rebel against 400 years of puritanism, and knowing how much they like to be on TV, I must go now and buy some stock in Clorox...

Mukasey Exploits 9/11. Maddow: "Bull Puckey!"

This could be big. I hope it lands Bush & Co. in the hoosegow. It probably won't.



Thanks to MSNBC for making these things easy to grab and for inviting us to do so.

Happy belated birthday to Dr. Maddow. She turned 35 yesterday. I'm 27 years older than her and not half as smart.

Update:

Glenn Greenwald on the same subject.

Michael Mukasey has conclusively proven himself to be an exact replica of Alberto Gonzales -- slavishly loyal to every presidential whim and unbound by even the most minimal constraints of truth while serving those whims.

The Clean Energy Scam

Good article in Time about the misguided rush to convert food into fuel. Today's 'recommended read'.

But several new studies show the biofuel boom is doing exactly the opposite of what its proponents intended: it's dramatically accelerating global warming, imperiling the planet in the name of saving it. Corn ethanol, always environmentally suspect, turns out to be environmentally disastrous. Even cellulosic ethanol made from switchgrass, which has been promoted by eco-activists and eco-investors as well as by President Bush as the fuel of the future, looks less green than oil-derived gasoline.

Meanwhile, by diverting grain and oilseed crops from dinner plates to fuel tanks, biofuels are jacking up world food prices and endangering the hungry. The grain it takes to fill an SUV tank with ethanol could feed a person for a year. [...]

Biofuels do slightly reduce dependence on imported oil, and the ethanol boom has created rural jobs while enriching some farmers and agribusinesses. But the basic problem with most biofuels is amazingly simple, given that researchers have ignored it until now: using land to grow fuel leads to the destruction of forests, wetlands and grasslands that store enormous amounts of carbon.

The article talks a lot about Brazil, but it goes into the political reality of why corn ethanol is being touted in the U.S. as well.

If biofuels are the new dotcoms, Iowa is Silicon Valley, with 53,000 jobs and $1.8 billion in income dependent on the industry. The state has so many ethanol distilleries under construction that it's poised to become a net importer of corn. That's why biofuel-pandering has become virtually mandatory for presidential contenders. John McCain was the rare candidate who vehemently opposed ethanol as an outrageous agribusiness boondoggle, which is why he skipped Iowa in 2000. But McCain learned his lesson in time for this year's caucuses. By 2006 he was calling ethanol a "vital alternative energy source."

Please read the rest.

Letter From Iraq

The Washington Independent

'It Becomes Almost Impossible To Find A Purpose In What We Do.'

A friend of a friend just received the following email from a junior officer serving in Iraq. It makes for especially powerful reading in the wake of the Second Sadrist Intifada. Reprinted with permission.


[Name redacted],

I agree that the war was a great strategic mistake. The way I see it, Saddam Hussein was a secular leader and therefore a huge stumbling block to the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East. Yes, he was an evil person and he was our enemy (since Gulf War I) but he was also an enemy of Bin Laden and the Shia extremists etc. If he did have WMDs, he would have used them for regional influence. He never would have given them up to terrorists or risked provoking the US by using them against us. Now, with Saddam gone we have a vacuum that can only be filled by Shia extremists who are more of a terrorist threat than Saddam.

So I agree that coming here was a big mistake for those reasons and others. As far as things on the ground, the outlook isn't much better. In my opinion, what everyone fails to realize is that this is not a counterinsurgency. If we wanted to stay in Iraq, then it would be a counterinsurgency. But it is clear that our goal is to turn over power and pull out. So, in building our strategic endstate, it's pointless to set goals that relate to our presence in Iraq. If the "insurgency" is a function of our being there, then it is not an insurgency in terms of our endstate. For example, if one of our goals is to stop IED attacks on US forces, that is pointless. When we leave, there will be no more IED attacks on US forces. So our endstate needs to be different. We need to ask "if we left tomorrow, what would happen in Iraq?" and from there, we need to determine which of those anticipated results are unacceptable to us. Then we must aim our efforts on making sure those unacceptable results do not occur.

When I look at the problem that way, it becomes almost impossible to find a purpose in what we do. Regardless of what we do, the Shia are going to take control. They have completely infiltrated all the security forces. The only kind of leader who could keep them in check was a tyrant like Saddam. And when the Shia take control, as soon as we leave, they are going to be as brutal as they like against the Sunni and there will be little we can do about it. That is what will happen whether we leave tomorrow or in ten years. As far as the foreign fighters, they will leave Iraq when we do. So what are we trying to accomplish here? Train the Iraqi forces? History shows that training forces in the Middle East can backfire. Any training we offer these people will find its way to our terrorist enemies.

Things are heating up as well. The Shia are getting more aggressive. We lost a man the other day and another was seriously wounded a week or so later. We're facing a high risk with very little potential payoff. We are able to make a difference at the local level. Some of the people are very kind and appreciate our help. That is the only positive thing I can see coming out of this.

Very Respectfully
Junior Officer XXXX

Time to go. Way past time. The Iraqis will settle this themselves.

Point to Ponder

If disaffected Democrats from either side of the primary battle decide to express their pique by supporting John McSame for President and do it in numbers sufficient to give the general election to McSame, progressives lose control of the Supreme Court for a long, long time. I know that some of you out there are/will be royally pissed off by real or imagined slights no matter who gets the Democratic nomination. Think past the tip of your nose, folks, before you act.

JG.

The Milagro Beanfield War

I am so sick of the wall-to-wall coverage of the Democratic campaign. For once David Brooks is right: "...they couldn't manage a bordello in a gold rush", and all the rest of the news is same shit, different day, so I decided to do something a little different today until my brain quits throwing up. This isn't actually all that different from what we usually do around here in terms of railing against social injustice, corrupt politics, and Big Biz.

I was reading earlier about the increased use of food stamps in the current recession, and I got to rememberin' a hilarious scene in The Milagro Beanfield War where el anciano Amarante buys bullets for his ancient .44 hand cannon with them. He does this in the local cantina and general store after a few shots of mezcal while the bartender/storekeeper tells him in exasperation, "you can't do that!". He does, though, and then proceeds with an amazing display of marksmanship, somewhat to the dismay of the other patrons.

I looked at YouTube to see if I could find that particular scene, but I din't, so here's a vid of clips from the movie. Amarante is the old gentleman in the black suit and he appears a coupla times. A true revolutionary, and an inspiration to us old farts.

I've read the book and seen the movie (many times) and I highly recommend both. I think the movie has an amazing cast. Please go read about the video.

And lest I forget, I think Sônia Braga is gorgeous! Enjoy.

Bonaire

Bonaire yesterday. Didn't do anything but shop, but I tossed up a couple random snaps anyway. We just backed into Barbados a few minutes ago using a maneuver that was amazing. I'll do a post later in the week on how Queen Mary 2 handles like an Formula 1 car of the sea.

Someday the bastards in Washington . . .

. . . will be brought to justice. For this:

Tracking a Marine Lost at Home

and for the tens of thousands of other crimes that they've committed.

JG.

"Take yer wheelbarrow fulla dollars elsewhere, Yankee pig!"

Americablog

[...] The almighty dollar is now no better than a third world currency you've never even heard of. From Reuters:

The U.S. dollar's value is dropping so fast against the euro that small currency outlets in Amsterdam are turning away tourists seeking to sell their dollars for local money while on vacation in the Netherlands....

That's because the smaller currency exchanges -- despite buy/sell spreads that make it easier for them to make money by exchanging small amounts of currency -- don't want to be caught holding dollars that could be worth less by the time they can sell them.

Imagine if Bill Clinton had done this. Imagine the Republican talking points. Come on, Democrats - think strategically. This is the kind of insult that regular Americans can appreciate.

Indeed. I think we can blame everything on Bush like the Repugs do to Clinton, only with more basis in fact, not that that ever matters.

I need to go to the bathroom. Damn you, Bush...

Can you say "PIN-O-CHET"?

Words of Power on the role of Alternative Media:

Can you say "PIN-O-CHET"? Those three syllabes should become a sacred mantra to US patriots.

Yes, Bush, Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Gonzalez, Rice, Fieth, Wolfowitz and the others should be looking over their shoulders for what happened to Valerie Plame, for what happened to New Orleans, for what happened to the US military, for what happen to US honor and prestige, for what happened to the DoJ, the EPA, and other vital federal agencies, etc. Presidential pardons might be able to insulate the principals from US law, but they cannot insulate them from international law.

And what must we do to make sure that Bush, Cheney, et al, like Pinochet, have to look over their shoulders at potential legal woes for the rest of their lives?

I appreciate the sentiment, but I think they should be looking out between bars for the rest of their lives whilst undergoing serial trials.

Can you say "LONG DROP ON A SHORT ROPE"?

Let Them Eat Cake

Two of my favorites, Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, talk about the administration's attitude toward the people affected by the 'housing bubble' on This Week. From Think Progress.

Politics Aren't Us

Will Durst on why him and me and Fixer wouldn't be very good politicians:

You can't say I didn't give it a go, either. Politics, that is. Not prostitution. But then, they're easy to mix up. [...]

Oh sure, I've made a halfway decent living mocking and scoffing and taunting our various elected officials, but what most of us fail to appreciate are the necessary complement of specialized growths our beleaguered civil servants are forced to sprout. Slippery skills, like appearing way too happy to see people you don't even know. How to wear clothes so boring, tailors weep in your presence. Or saying stuff you don't really mean for fear of inflicting possible offense upon potential contributors you wouldn't be caught dead with in a zombie infested chemical lab sub-basement huddling from rampaging mutants. And yes, I am talking about pollsters.

And who among us could hold our tongues like Chelsea Clinton did after some cretin wondered about her mother's response to Monica Lewinsky. My retort, "Blow it out your butt, dirtbag," would have garnered equal time with the Reverend Jeremiah Wright on a FOX News loop. [...]

Heh. Indeed. That would be the printable version of my response as well.

Dream Ticket

Chicago Sun-Times

But look at it this way. Obama's mother was white and Richardson's father was white. Together, you get one whole white man. And you get black, white and Hispanic rolled up together like an all-American burrito.

Yum!

High and to the right...

...like Bush always is.

President Bush delivered the first pitch tonight at the new Nationals Park in Washington, D.C. to a resounding chorus of boos. After being announced, Bush was showered by boos as he strode to the mound. Even after Bush delivered the pitch, the jeering did not let up until the President disappeared from the field. Watch it:

The Dilbert Strategy

Paul Krugman nails it:

Anyone who has worked in a large organization - or, for that matter, reads the comic strip "Dilbert" - is familiar with the "org chart" strategy. To hide their lack of any actual ideas about what to do, managers sometimes make a big show of rearranging the boxes and lines that say who reports to whom.

You now understand the principle behind the Bush administration's new proposal for financial reform, which will be formally announced today: it's all about creating the appearance of responding to the current crisis, without actually doing anything substantive.

So, will the administration's plan succeed? I'm not asking whether it will succeed in preventing future financial crises - that's not its purpose. The question, instead, is whether it will succeed in confusing the issue sufficiently to stand in the way of real reform.

Please read the rest.