Milo Minderbinder in Afghanistan

Good piece at This Can't Be Happening, which of course it is.

1st Lt. Milo Minderbinder
"We're gonna come out of this war rich!"

Yossarian
"You're gonna come out rich. We're gonna come out dead."

-From the Buck Henry screenplay of Catch 22

No one has captured the absurd spirit of US war-making better than Joseph Heller in Catch 22. Here’s one of the greatest literary symbols for capitalism, Milo Minderbinder, on the future of US warfare:

"In a democracy, the government is the people," Milo explained. "We’re people, aren’t we? So we might just as well keep the money and eliminate the middleman. Frankly, I’d like to see the government get out of war altogether and leave the whole field to private industry."

In a dynamic Milo Minderbinder would understand, the Afghan security companies protecting US troops from Taliban attacks are now cutting deals with the Taliban on a regular basis. According to an official in the Interior Ministry, if the Taliban are too strong to intimidate, a deal is made. This includes payment not to attack convoys and certain things like radio and cell phone towers.

In one instance, two Afghan security companies -- Watan Risk Management and Compass Security -- were cut out of NATO convoy protection contracts for shooting civilians. The morning the ban went into effect, a NATO convoy was attacked and two men were killed.

According to Filkins, evidence suggests these companies either attacked the convoy themselves or contracted with the Taliban to make the attack. Supply-laden trucks began to stack up on the highway, and soon the contracts were resumed and the two companies were back to work.

Milo Minderbinder should have the last word. Here he speaks with the story’s main character Yossarian, in the 1970 film version of Heller's story. The character Nately has just been killed in the raid Milo contracted on the US base.

Minderbinder
"Nately died a wealthy man, Yossarian. He had over sixty shares in the syndicate."

Yossarian
"What difference does that make? He's dead."

Minderbinder
"Then his family will get it."

Yossarian
"He didn't have time to have a family."

Minderbinder
"Then his parents will get it."

Yossarian
"They don't need it. They're rich."

Minderbinder
"Then they'll understand."

That's about it. Please read the rest.

In Defence Of Helen Thomas and The Myth Of Free Speech

Jonathan Cook in Palestine Chronicle:

Ms Thomas earnt a reputation as a combative journalist, at least by American standards, with a succession of administrations over their Middle East policies, culminating in Bush officials boycotting her for her relentless criticisms of the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan. But the reaction to her latest remarks suggest that, if there is one topic in American public life on which the boundaries of what can and cannot be said are still tightly policed, it is Israel.

Undoubtedly, Ms Thomas’ opinions, as she expressed them in an unguarded moment, were inappropriate and required an apology. It is true, as she says, that Palestine was occupied and the land taken from the Palestinians by Jewish immigrants with no right to it barring a Biblical title deed. But 62 years on from Israel’s creation, most Jewish citizens have no home to go to in Poland and Germany -- or in Iraq and Yemen, for that matter. There is also an uncomfortable echo in her words of the chauvinism underpinning demands from some Jews -- and many Israelis -- that Palestinians should “go home to the 22 Arab states”.

The flip side is that the other Arabs don't want them.

Ms Thomas is an Arab-American, of Lebanese descent, whose remarks were publicised in the immediate wake of Israel’s lethal commando attack on a flotilla of aid ships trying to break the siege of Gaza. Unlike most Americans, who were half-wakened from their six-decade Middle East slumber by the killing of at least nine Turkish activists, Ms Thomas has been troubled by the Palestinians’ plight for much of her long lifetime.

She was in her late twenties when Israel ethnically cleansed three-quarters of a million Palestinians from most of Palestine, a move endorsed by the fledgling United Nations. She was in her mid-forties when Israel took over the rest of Palestine and parts of Egypt and Syria in a war that dealt a crushing blow to Arab identity and pride and made Israel a favoured ally of the US. In her later years she has witnessed Israel’s repeated destruction of Lebanon, her parents’ homeland, and the slow confinement and erasure of the neighbouring Palestinian people. Both have occurred under a duplicitious American “peace process” while Washington has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into Israel’s coffers.

It is therefore entirely understandable if, despite her own personal success, she feels a simmering anger not only at what has taken place throughout her lifetime in the Middle East but also at the silencing of all debate about it in the US by the Washington elites she counted as friends and colleagues.

I've called her "the old Ay-rab" for years, but I didn't know 'til now that she actually is one. She's dead right about the United States mishandling the entire Middle East virtually forever, kinda like smoking a cigarette whilst seated on a powder keg in the middle of a lake of gasoline.

What she said after "Israel should leave Palestine", which is true of its attitude toward Gaza and the West Bank though not of the larger former Palestine, was out of line but it was her right to say it.

Repugs, neocons, warmongers, and other never-righties say a lot worse things and do not get pilloried for it. I think at her age it's plenty OK for her to bow out and retire and I hope she can enjoy her remaining years, but if she had been forty years old, those few sentences would have unfairly ruined her career, not that fairness should be expected by anyone anywhere.

This whole deal is the poster child for misdirected political correctness run amuck when it comes to Israel, which in a sane world would be called a bully. The U.S. as well for being its enabler and abettor.

Insanity ...

I don't get crazy about sporting events, mostly. If the Mets make the playoffs, I'm watching. Same goes for the Giants (The New York Football variety). And I'll try to catch Daytona and the Bristol NASCAR races. That's about it.

And then there's the World Cup. You know, real football.

Mrs. F is happy it only takes place every four years. It starts today and I'll be an idiot for the next month until it's over, trying to catch as many matches as I can. Fortunately, ESPN Satellite Radio is carrying all the games so I can listen at work and in the car.

USA/England is tomorrow and my boys, "Der Mannschaft", play their first match on Sunday v. the Aussies.

I'm out of my mind (more than usual). Heh ...

Happy Friday!

Whiners and Sheep ...

Click pic to make big. Stolen from the American Progressive Party's Facebook Page.

The Whiners complain about paying a few more percent in taxes (they can certainly afford it) and have the Sheep brainwashed to believe we're heading down the road to Marxist Russia.

Quote of the Day

Lewis Black:

...

"They, as far as I can tell, are attacking us with oil. And so I propose we declare war and invade them," Black suggested.

...

I'm down wid dat, brother.

Packing it in ...

I'll be leaving the car business in October and I give it a parting shot.

Shades of Ilse Koch

Pardon the pun. I'm a sick pup...

Mengele's Children: American Medical Experiments and Torture

AMY GOODMAN: A new report from Physicians for Human Rights accuses the Bush administration of conducting illegal and unethical human experimentation and research on prisoners in CIA custody. The report details how doctors, psychologists and other professionals monitored the effects of sleep deprivation, waterboarding and other so-called "enhanced interrogation" techniques on more than a dozen prisoners. It charges that CIA doctors and other medical personnel turned the prisoners into research subjects and collected data in order to study and refine those techniques, but did so under the guise of trying to protect the health of the detainees. The report argues that in determining how far a harsh interrogation could go, doctors, psychologists and physician’s assistants participated in justifying acts that had long been classified illegal, provided legal cover against prosecution, and helped designed future interrogation procedures.

It got me to thinking that Godwin's Law comes in handy across the board. It ain't just Hitler we compare righties and neocons to.

From The Trial of Ilse Koch:

"She was a very beautiful woman with long red hair, but any prisoner who was caught looking at her could be shot," recalled Kurt Glass, a former inmate who worked as a gardener at the Koch family villa. "She got the idea she would like lamp shades made of human skin, and one day on the Appellplatz we were all ordered to strip to the waist. The ones who had interesting tattoos were brought to her, and she picked out the ones she liked. Those people were killed and their skin was made into lampshades for her. She also used mummified human thumbs as light switches in her house."

Congratulations, Georgie and The Dick. You're the new 'Bitchez of Buchenwald'.

Outage on 16

We were a little worried about this one, but it came out OK.

CoCoTimes

California voters' rejection of Proposition 16, despite at least $46 million in backing from Pacific Gas and Electric Co., clears the way for municipalities throughout the state to follow Marin's lead and compete with the investor-owned utility as retailers of electricity.

The proposition, which would have required two-thirds approval from local voters before cities or counties could choose an alternate energy provider, lost with 52.5 percent of voters opposed and 47.5 percent in favor. In Marin the margin was much larger: 61.3 percent of voters voted no, while 38.7 percent voted yes.
...

"The voters saw through the attempt to buy the election. They could smell a rat," said Marin Supervisor Charles McGlashan, who heads the Marin Energy Authority board. The authority, which consists of the county of Marin and seven Marin cities, is sponsoring the Marin Clean Energy initiative, the first community choice aggregation effort in the state, which is competing for customers with PG&E.

"I'm relieved that other communities may be able to join us in creating competition," McGlashan said.

In a press release, Greg Pruett, senior vice president of corporate affairs for PG&E, said PG&E respected the voters' decision. [...]

That's white of ya, Greg. This attempt by PG&E to highjack the initiative process and con the voters into thinking their 'voting rights' were under attack to prevent competition failed because enough voters paid attention.

I have no idea what effect the overcharging of thousands of customers by PG&E's SmartMeters had on the election. Heh.

Here's an interesting bit: voters in areas where private utility companies like PG&E are predominant voted against Prop 16 in overwhelming numbers. Voters in areas with giant publicly owned utilities, like Los Angeles' Department Of Water & Power (LADWP), voted for it in large numbers. The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, I guess.

Nobody seems to like their large utility companies very much. I get my power from the Truckee Donner Public Utility District (TDPUD) (from whom I get free light bulbs) via Sierra Pacific Power Company (NV Energy), a publicly traded company. The power appears to be ON and I like TDPUD just fine. My polling place is in their meeting room, which I think is a very fitting place to vote against the attempted power grab (pun intended) by Big Volt.

She's got the scientologist teabagger vote sewed up!

I live next door to Nevada, 12 miles from the state line and 12-miles-and-one-foot from the closest casino. Besides 24-hour saloons and legal bordellos that are the tax base of the cow counties, they have one of the wackiest politicians going in the form of Sharron Angle who won the Repug senatorial primary and will go up against Harry Reid in November.

From Dana Milbank via the EssEffZam:

According to Dana Milbank's column in the Washington Post and other news sources this morning, here are some of the wacky ideas Angle, a former substitute teacher for 25 years, is proposing:

* Bring more nuclear waste to Nevada.
* Deregulate Big Oil; BP spill was only "an accident."
* Abolish the Education Department, Energy Department, EPA, United Nations and most of the IRS.
* Eliminate Social Security -- possibly Medicare and unemployment insurance too.
* Outlaw alcohol. (See 'state with 24-hour saloons' - G)

Other odd and misinformed views:

* Abortion causes breast cancer.
* Prisoners should have massages and saunas (program created by Scientology).
* Drug sales supported the attack on 9/11.

During Angle's time in Nevada's state assembly, she voted "no" so frequently on matters of wide consensus that votes were often called as "41-to-Angle."
...

Angle was named "Nevada's worst legislator" several times by the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Another Republican contender, Sue Lowden, blasted Angle in this ad:

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/05/lowden-ad-rips-angle-named-one-of-nevadas-worst-legislators.php

Even though about half of Nevadans view Reid unfavorably, it's hard to fathom a general electorate sending anyone as loopy as Angle to the U.S. Senate. She makes Reid look good indeed.

Whatever we think of Reid, he's better than this idiot. He's not only going to dodge the bullet, it has no primer or powder. I hope he knows how lucky he is to have Ms. Angle as his opponent. Nevadans are politically crazy and you never know, but the smart money is on Reid.

Ms. Angle may be 'loopy', but in her defense I will say she doesn't appear to be mean-spirited and downright evil in her views like Bachmann and some others.

BTW, I got the Repug "my opponent is a flaming Librul godless commie fuck!" primary TV ads from two states. Lucky me.

Lemons ...

To lemonade.

A truism ...

If Republicans are bitching about Dems doing it, they've probably already done it and more:

In the latest twist in the ever-growing Mark Kirk military service fiasco, the Illinois Senate candidate appears to have violated military regulations by campaigning while on active duty.

If Kirk did indeed campaign while serving, as a newly released Department of Defense memo suggests, the offense would be punishable by up to two years of confinement and dishonorable discharge from the military.

...

But it's okay because ...

[Say it with me.]

... he's a Republican.

Link thanks to Mr. Aravosis.

I'm tired ...

Of being pissed on and being told it's raining.

For reasons that could make sense only to the "effing retarded," the Obama White House has chosen not only to ignore virtually every Democratic voter group but to taunt them, rub their noses in it, and insult any Democrats who dare to demand better choices than the corporate shills that now control much of the Party and the White House.

...

They sure kissed our collective ass when they were running for office.

...

So let’s see. In just the last year, the White House has managed not merely to ignore and disappoint but often gone out of its way to mislead, lie to and betray liberals/progressives, labor unions, teachers, Hispanics, gays/lesbians, anti-war groups, dedicated environmentalists, respected pro-employment/pro-growth Nobel economists, climate scientists, financial reformers, defenders of Medicare and Social Security, mainstreet populists, civil liberties and women’s rights advocates, defenders of public interest regulation, alternative energy/efficiency supporters and even scarecrows.

In case you don’t recognize the list, that’s the core, the heart, the brains and the foot soldiers of the Democratic Party.

...

And in November, and the next few Novembers to come, we're supposed to forget all of this and vote like party members in good standing. Listen, I've got better things to do on a Tuesday night in November than stand in line at the voting booth. If they're gonna take my vote for granted they've got another thing coming.

I realize there's a big mess to clean up, all the leftovers from the Bush administration, but they can't be alienating the people that brung 'em. I certainly wouldn't vote Republican but it isn't mandatory I vote either. I'm tired of having to choose between the proverbial 'lesser of two evils'.

Great thanks to Watertiger for the link.

Update:

Digby is offended as well:

...

And, by the way, going to this length over Blanche Lincoln who is about to sign on to Murkowski's move to limit presidential power to regulate on behalf of the environment is just too ironic. What exactly are these guys fighting for?

Memo to Sarah Palin

From The Prince of Rude (I like that!) on 'POTUS as CEO':

Could someone please hold a flip phone up to Sarah Palin and get her saying something like, "We use Trig as a door stop"? No, really, could someone get this nouveau riche redneck twat on camera talking about how she'd never shop at Wal-Mart 'cause she might get some trailer trash tears on her? 'Cause the idea that she is "a force" in the American political discourse is like coming across a tribe in the jungle that worships a monkey head.

So what's new? We had that for eight years with the Chimperor.

Now, while Palin may look at the words "chief executive" in reference to a governor or president and think it's the same thing as "Chief Executive Officer" in a corporation, it's that very analogy that has fucked us over. The government ain't a company. The president ain't a CEO. Palin is either an idiot, Chauncey Gardner with tits, or an unconscionable, self-aggrandizing moose-fucker.

See, a CEO's job is to make money for the corporation. That's it. Shit like laws and taxes and safety are impediments that must be dealt with on the way to making money. A CEO has to be a greedy bastard, a cuntish conqueror who doesn't give a fuck what has to be done to get more money. The second you say that the President of the United States is on an equivalent level with a CEO is the second you reveal that you don't know fuck-all about government and you degrade the presidency. The logical leap to President-as-CEO is a callous manipulation of the expectations of the governed, and it turns citizens into selfish shareholders.

One last thing: that Sarah Palin would invoke her two-and-a-half year stint as governor of Alaska as her "executive experience" is fucking pathetic, like a first-time tourist attempting to give directions to the locals.

It's much more fun to give directions to first-time tourists, trust me. They'll see things they never knew existed in some mighty unlikely places. Heh.

Your tar balls are in my junk shot

If it's Wednesday, it must be Morford. He's off on oilspillese.

"Oh my sweet capitalist god, I wish the top kill had worked after the useless top hat and that botched junk shot, because now the tar balls are rolling in, and the tar patties are collecting into glumpy gloops all over the beaches, and you can see the sheen stretching for 100 miles in all directions, all because the damn blowout preventer jammed and, of course, now they've dumped a million gallons of toxic dispersant on the gushing plume since the relief wells aren't nearly complete. We need more skimmers!"

Quite a mouthload, is it not? All sorts of joyful burden to roll these new and oily words around on your tongue, like candy-coated gunpowder? Like little cubes of raw demon blood? Verily.

In other words, other words. Every war, every devastation, every invention and advancement lets us further mutate, mingle and shapeshift our mindmelds, bedazzle the dictionary and upflip the lexicaldingle as we reconfigulate the snugglemodes of the metaverbalizer. You follow me? Of course you do.

Holy crap, Morford. Send me a lid of whatever yer smokin' and maybe I could follow you...

Today he is working the language like a redheaded stepchild. Do not miss this!

How George Bush, Joe Barton, Dick Cheney and Tom DeLay Caused the Gulf Oil Spill and Made Sure BP Will Never Be Held Accountable

Crooks and Liars tamps this into a nice neat brick. A 'recommended must read'.

Does everyone remember Dick Cheney's "National Energy Task Force"? The one where meetings were held in secret, and energy policy was set by the foxes in charge of the henhouse? Yeah, I figured you might.

The Center for American Progress has connected the dots between this task force, the Bush Administration energy policies, and Tom DeLay's leadership in the House of Representatives to paint a straight line right back to Cheney & Co. I don't agree with the conclusion of "Cheney's Katrina", so how about we call it "Cheney's Oil Apocalypse" instead?

How about we call it "OUR Cheney-caused Oil Apocalypse"?

Act One - The Administration complies

First, the SAFE Act is introduced in the House in 2001. It provides for the following (quotes from CAP post):

* Taxpayer funds to reimburse oil companies for the costs of complying with the National Environmental Policy Act (Sec. 6234)
* A suspension of royalties on tens of millions of barrels of oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico—especially from deepwater wells like the one now spewing into the gulf (Sec. 6202)
* Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling — with expedited leasing, limited judicial review, and lip service to environmental concerns (Div. F, Title V)

Check off one set of recommendations, though it took Cheney and Big Oil until 2003 to get it to a conference committee. Just after the midterms, Republicans guided the bill through the House, with DeLay twisting arms as needed. With Democrats safely in the minority, the conference committee was able to exempt all oil and gas construction activities from the Clean Water Act, force BLM lease approvals within 10 days, grant unprecedented authority to the Department of Interior to fast-track permits, and allocate $2 billion for oil companies to drill in ultra deepwater areas.

A filibuster in the Senate stopped it from becoming law. Then.

Act Two - If at first you don't succeed, try, try again...

Go...

It's unclear how the Cheney Energy Act will play out in the legal morass yet to come. What we should expect are many challenges by BP lawyers to any effort to claim damages under the Clean Water Act (given the exemptions) as well as challenges for liability beyond cleaning up the spill.

But whatever happens, dear viewers, know this: The responsible parties are George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Joe Barton, and Tom DeLay.

Repeat. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Get the word out. Put the spotlight on the real villains.

I wonder if the RICO Act might apply?

Just as an aside, if legal boilerplate doesn't give you a headache like it does to me, go read R.I.C.O. Lawsuit Against G.W. Bush. Tell me how it turned out, though I can guess that it went nowhere.

Over The Cliff

Over The Cliff: How Obama's Election Drove the American Right Insane (Paperback), From Crooks and Liars
By John Amato John Amato (Author), David Neiwert (Author), Digby (Foreword)

"Compiling example after example, the editors of Crooks and Liars, a popular blog, examine the torrent of right-wing kookery—the eager willingness of conservatives to fervently believe things that are provably false—and its ramifications both for our national discourse and our national well-being. The authors show how this outlandish, overheated rhetoric—generated by mainstream-media figures like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Lou Dobbs—is accompanied by a wave of lethal right-wing violence and threatening behavior.

The book explores the main drivers of this descent into madness: the extremist Radical Right and the longtime Republican willingness—dating back to Nixon, but refined in more recent years by Lee Atwater and his acolytes—to engage in a divisive politics of resentment, both racial and cultural. The authors also examine ways ordinary Americans can stop the madness."

If it has directions on how to stop them it might be worth a read. I wonder if the phrase 'mass quantities of funerals' comes into play?

Also see C & L's page on this.

Update:

I told Mrs. G about this book and it is on its way by executive order.

"Who could have known?"

Isn't that the prevailing wisdom?

"Nobody could have anticipated ..."

Seems that if anyone in a position of authority was doing their jobs and/or paying attention, they would have seen BP's pattern of disregard for the safety of their workers and the integrity of the environment.

...

A 2001 report noted that BP had neglected key equipment needed for emergency shutdown, including safety shutoff valves and gas and fire detectors similar to those that could have helped prevent the fire and explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf.

A 2004 inquiry found a pattern of intimidating workers who raised safety or environmental concerns. It said managers were shaving maintenance costs with the practice of "run to failure," under which aging equipment was used as long as possible. Accidents resulted, including the 200,000-gallon Prudhoe Bay pipeline spill in 2006, the largest ever spill on Alaska's North Slope.

During the same period, similar problems surfaced at BP facilities in California and Texas.

In 2002, California officials discovered that BP had falsified inspections of fuel tanks at a Los Angeles-area refinery and that more than 80 percent of the facilities didn't meet requirements to maintain storage tanks without leaks or damage. Inspectors were forced to get a warrant before BP allowed them to check the tanks. The company eventually settled a civil lawsuit brought by the South Coast Air Quality Management District for more than $100 million.

...

While we on the Left are all concerned about keeping the wall between church and state intact, it's time to build a wall between corporations and state because this sleazy partnership will lead to our downfall long before the theocrats get a chance to do it.

I've had all I can stands ...

And I can't stands no more.

You just have to shake your head:

A Roosevelt woman set fire to her own house Tuesday, Nassau police say, amid an ongoing dispute with her sister and her sister's boyfriend over the boyfriend's presence in the house.

...

I've had enough of you assholes so I'm gonna burn my house down.

K ...

...

Joseph Small, who also lived in the home, said he spoke with Richardson and tried to take the gasoline away from her.

"She said no one was going to live there after today," he said, adding, "I don't think she's a bad person. She just has issues."

She'll have time to sort out her issues here. The shit that happens on this fucking sandbar.

Gitmo? What Gitmo?

Seems nobody really wants to close Gitmo.

It's been more than five months since the Obama administration missed its self-imposed deadline for the closure of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. And as things stand now, one key member of Congress says, the White House is showing little to no willingness to continue pursuing one of the more high-minded promises made by the president before entering office.

...

White House? Check.

...

The senator, who is a leading proponent of Gitmo's closure, acknowledged (more implicitly than explicitly) that the issue was, for all intents and purposes, off the table -- at least for the noticeable future. It was not the president's fault per se, he said. Though a bit of lobbying on the matter wouldn't hurt. Simply put, the congressional skepticism has been too steep to overcome.

"The majority of my committee voted basically to keep it open indefinitely. Because they took away from the money for the alternative," said Levin. "You can't close it unless you have some other place to take people and put people. I happen to think it should be closed. Our military leaders think it should be closed... I think it is dangerous to America to keep that symbol there. But as long as you have the majority of Congress that oppose closing it, all the Republicans and some Democrats, it won't be easy to close it."

...

Congress? Check.

Oh, that Gitmo. We're workin' on it.

I think, between the White House and Congress, they're all hoping whoever is still there will die off and solve the whole problem before any of them have to put their political ass on the line any further.

Get busy, Kathy!

Glenn Greenwald

Congrats to Rush Limbaugh on his fourth traditional marriage

No. 4 might be the lucky Mrs. Limbaugh if she plays her cards right. After all the dope and cigars and Dominican boys and high livin', how good can his heart (the physical one - there is no other) be?

Note to No. 4: As distasteful as this sounds, grease that thing up and work it. About the time it takes 6 boner pills to prop up his mighty two-incher, with any luck at all his heart will blow and you'll be rich. Make sure you're on top or keep your cell phone handy to call for a tow truck to extricate you before he rots.