Several years ago, I got a bunch of signatures on a petition to put Chesty Puller on a stamp. It finally happened. His stamp, along with three others, was issued on 10 November 2005. I tried to get them at my local post office but they never got them. I went to Reno the other day and the gal at the 'big city' Post Office had a drawer full of them. Click the links for a picture of the stamps and a bio of each of these distinguished Marines:
GySgt."Manila John" Basilone - Medal of Honor at Guadalcanal, KIA on Iwo Jima.
SgtMaj. Dan Daly - Famous for the phrase "Come on you sonsabitches! Ya wanta live forever?" at Belleau Wood in WWI.
LtGen. John A. LeJeune - Considered the father of the modern Marine Corps. His Birthday Message of 1921 is still read aloud on Marine Corps Birthday.
BGen. Lewis B. Puller - What can I say? Good night, Chesty, wherever you are.
I put the enlisted men first because that's what good officers do.
Buy some stamps too. Don't worry - they're self-stick. I checked before I bought 'em. It makes me a little queasy to think of turnin' Marines over and lickin' 'em! Shouldn't bother you squids though! (wink)
Saturday, January 7, 2006
Let Us Prey...
Joe Conason on DeLay, Abramoff, the religious right, and what the Bible says about bribery.
Worth a read.
Jack Abramoff and his deeply religious right-wing cronies express their "biblical worldview" by swindling Indian tribes and bribing legislators. Verily, mysterious are the ways of the Lord.
Worth a read.
Ultra AP
No, not a jazzed-up news agency, this refers to a new armored vehicle under development by some former NASCAR engineers along with the Office of Naval Research and others. Interesting, and long overdue.
We need this to replace the aging Humvees. They are twenty years old and over their gross weight with the addition of 5000 pounds of armor. They accelerate
like a granny in a crosswalk, and their top speed is about the same. They average a breakdown every 300 miles. Due to the weight, they blow a lot of tires. Yeah, like I'd sure wanta put on the spare in Fallujah. Not. This info is from the 2/05 Car & Driver, but I couldn't link to it.
We need this to replace the aging Humvees. They are twenty years old and over their gross weight with the addition of 5000 pounds of armor. They accelerate
like a granny in a crosswalk, and their top speed is about the same. They average a breakdown every 300 miles. Due to the weight, they blow a lot of tires. Yeah, like I'd sure wanta put on the spare in Fallujah. Not. This info is from the 2/05 Car & Driver, but I couldn't link to it.
Huge Defense Budget, Lousy Equipment
Mother Jones
Yes, but Halliburton is doing quite well, thank you.
Go read. This one'll piss ya off.
The Pentagon spends $1 billion a day. So why do US soldiers have such shoddy combat supplies?
Reports from the Army's Natick Soldier Center and its Tank-automotive and Armaments Command and the Marine's Systems Command Liaison Team in Iraq, all from 2002 and 2003, tell us, for example, troops' "dislikes," including uniforms that rip easily, eyewear that fogs up and fits poorly under helmets, and boots that blister, crack, and burst, and are "poor for movement," or as in one soldier's e-mail are "truly awful and also painful."
Troops buy some equipment with their own money, usually because Government Issue performs poorly. Such items include gloves, socks, flashlights, padding for backpacks, "CamelBak" hydration systems, and weapons cleaning equipment. Banal items? Perhaps to us back home, but certainly not for Soldiers fighting in the winter mountains of Afghanistan and the desert heat of Iraq, doing whatever it takes to keep their bodies and their weapons working.
Yes, but Halliburton is doing quite well, thank you.
Go read. This one'll piss ya off.
YESSS!
NYTimes
They say you meet the same people on your way down as you did on the way up. This is his second step. Note to the Bug Man: make sure your flyswatter is clean and oiled.
Embattled Rep. Tom DeLay on Saturday abandoned his bid to remain as House majority leader, clearing the way for leadership elections among Republicans eager to shed the taint of scandal.
They say you meet the same people on your way down as you did on the way up. This is his second step. Note to the Bug Man: make sure your flyswatter is clean and oiled.
Clueless
What the fuck passes for leadership at the Pentagon? I mean, I realize they blew it in Iraq, but by golly, I figured it was a matter of numbers (force strengths vs. number of insurgents). It seems they had no fucking plan at all.
WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Paul Bremer, who led the U.S. civilian occupation authority in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, has admitted the United States did not anticipate the insurgency in the country, NBC Television said on Friday.
...
Link via DR.
The difference between conservatives
The Chimp probably thought he had an ally in 'Old Europe' when the Germans elected the conservative Angela Merkel as their new Chancellor. Heh, they ain't a bunch of wingnuts like they are here. They've been there and done that, so to speak:
When it comes to the 'War on Terror', we are way out of the mainstream.
...
Just days before she is due to visit the United States for the first time since becoming German chancellor, Angela Merkel has come out with heavy criticism of US tactics in the fight against terrorism, specifically calling for the US to close its Guantanamo Bay prison camp and find other ways of dealing with terror suspects.
Merkel, in an interview the weekly magazine Der Spiegel published on Saturday, said: "An institution like Guantanamo can and should not exist in the longer term. Different ways and means must be found for dealing with these prisoners."
...
When it comes to the 'War on Terror', we are way out of the mainstream.
Thanks to AVA for the link.
Critical thinking
A great post I came across on An Athiest Soldier:
Wilson Kolb suggested the following:
You should do a posting about whether or not the military is one big nest of Republicans, other than a few scattered people like yourself. I'm curious as to whether the whole thing is as redneck as we've all been led to believe by the rightwingnut milblogs. Are the soliders really THAT propagandized?
My Answer:
...
Friday, January 6, 2006
Shitting their pants
Ha-ha!
And where she stops, nobody knows...
Update:
And since we're talking about congressweasels:
They don't know where to run first.
Washington's power players have always bragged about being well-wired, but for disgraced former congressman Duke Cunningham, "wired" wasn't just a figure of speech. In a week when legislators are focused on the question of who else might be brought down by ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff's cooperation with prosecutors as he seeks lenient sentencing over his two federal guilty pleas this week, sources tell TIME that in a separate investigation, ex-Rep. Cunningham wore a wire to help investigators gather evidence against others just before copping his own plea.
...
The identity of those with whom the San Diego congressman met while wearing the wire remains unclear, and is the source of furious - and nervous - speculation by congressional Republicans... [my em]
And where she stops, nobody knows...
Thanks to Susie for the link.
Update:
And since we're talking about congressweasels:
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - About two dozen Republicans have promised to sign a petition calling for elections to permanently replace Rep. Tom DeLay as majority leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, aides said on Friday.
...
They don't know where to run first.
Wal-Mart again...
This one takes the fucking cake for cultural insensitivity, or blatant racism, or both. From the EssEffChron:
I got nothing against a little ethnic humor. I know jokes that could get me killed if I lost my mind and told 'em where they could hurt people's feelings. This one's no joke, and it ain't funny.
It's a little too pat to be an 'accident', seems to me. Some computer clerk is probably laughin' his scrawny white ass off at his 'porch monkey' gag.
I got a good gag for ya: find this prick and drop him off in Oakland. Or Harlem. Better yet, CAFKIA's house. We'll see just how funny it is to those guys.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is shutting down the system that creates movie recommendations on its shopping Web site after it linked a "Planet of the Apes" DVD to films about famous black Americans, including Martin Luther King Jr.
Wal-Mart said Thursday it had removed what it called the "offensive combinations" from a walmart.com page advertising a boxed DVD set, "Planet of the Apes: The Complete TV Series."
Under a "similar items" section, the DVD set's page linked shoppers to four films about the lives of King, actress Dorothy Dandridge, boxer Jack Johnson and singer Tina Turner. Wal-Mart later altered the page to link with television show DVDs.
I got nothing against a little ethnic humor. I know jokes that could get me killed if I lost my mind and told 'em where they could hurt people's feelings. This one's no joke, and it ain't funny.
It's a little too pat to be an 'accident', seems to me. Some computer clerk is probably laughin' his scrawny white ass off at his 'porch monkey' gag.
I got a good gag for ya: find this prick and drop him off in Oakland. Or Harlem. Better yet, CAFKIA's house. We'll see just how funny it is to those guys.
It's not just the NSA, folks...
The Tacoma News Tribune has some disturbing news:
Yeah, right. We know how much respect this government has for the law. I feel a lot better now.
I think Bush musta found Nixon's playbook under the stairs. Damn good place to hide booze.
As it hunted down tax scofflaws, the Internal Revenue Service (my em) collected information on the political party affiliations of taxpayers in 20 states
"The bottom line is that we have never used this information," said John Lipold, an IRS spokesman. "There are strict laws in place that forbid it."
Yeah, right. We know how much respect this government has for the law. I feel a lot better now.
Murray said she learned about the problem from the president of the National Treasury Employees Union, Colleen Kelly. The IRS is part of the Treasury Department.
"This agency should not have that type of information," Murray said in a telephone interview from Seattle. "No one should question whether they are being audited because of party affiliation."
Kelly said Thursday that several IRS employees had complained to the union about the practice. She said IRS officials weren't even aware of it until she wrote them in late December.
"We think Congress should suspend IRS plans to use private collections agencies until these questions have been resolved," she said.
According to Murray's office, the 20 states in which the IRS collected party affiliation information were Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.
I think Bush musta found Nixon's playbook under the stairs. Damn good place to hide booze.
More on Amanpour spying
Americablog has a report on CNN picking up the report of spying on Christiane Amanpour.
Hey, NSA, I'll save ya money and grief: Lemme spy on her for ya. There's something about politically savvy, intelligent, international beauties with more balls than a pachinko parlor that floats my boat. A pair of binoculars and a ladder is all the high-tech I'd need!
Hey, NSA, I'll save ya money and grief: Lemme spy on her for ya. There's something about politically savvy, intelligent, international beauties with more balls than a pachinko parlor that floats my boat. A pair of binoculars and a ladder is all the high-tech I'd need!
Robertson off his game...
Swiped this from Bottomfeeder, an aptly named blog if there ever was one:
Click the links. This one will make your day. My face turned blue from laughing, so I'm going to suck oxygen now.
Is Pat Robertson Losing It?
It may have sounded like vintage Pat Robertson, when the ABC Family cable network star and founder of the Christian Coalition suggested that God smote Ariel Sharon in divine retribution for "dividing God's land."
In fact, this latest outburst shows us that the Rev. Pat is seriously off his game. How else to explain his failure to link Sharon's catastrophic stroke with the rampant scourge of interspecies marriage in the Holy Land?
However, it's good to know that someone had his back on this vital issue.
Click the links. This one will make your day. My face turned blue from laughing, so I'm going to suck oxygen now.
So what's "Crazy Howie" up to these days?
Via Kos, an update on Howard Dean's efforts to rebuild the Democrats.
Ha! Fat chance! Go read. Here's a taste:
It sounds to me like he's doing a methodical job of building up the grass roots network of grunts necessary to get Dems elected. This is good.
Now all we need is a message. Dean is leaving that to others. That's OK, but they better get on the stick.
The National Journal's subscription-only Hotline has a good piece on what Dean has accomplished. The sort of piece you won't see in the WaPo or other publications too busy pushing the "Dean is insane and ineffective" storyline.
With permission from the publication, here it is in whole:
Ha! Fat chance! Go read. Here's a taste:
Dean's defenders say he's making good on his pledge. The DNC has trained 136 new organizers and sent them to 30 states, and by the end of 3/06, party officials say every state's precinct training program will be up and running. In WV, the party now employs four full-time organizers. Recalcitrant county chairs are warming to their presence; one small county that had zero precinct captains in 2004 has twelve today.
"That may not seem like a huge step," says Parag Mehta, the DNC's director of training, "but in that party of West Virginia, where Democrats were afraid to put up yard signs for fear of being taunted, suddenly, there's a Democratic presence."
It sounds to me like he's doing a methodical job of building up the grass roots network of grunts necessary to get Dems elected. This is good.
Now all we need is a message. Dean is leaving that to others. That's OK, but they better get on the stick.
Show and tell
We all know this was pure theatre and nothing more, don't we?
They could have at least made it look good and blown an hour or so.
...
But if it was a bipartisan consultation, as advertised by the White House, it was a brief one. Mr. Bush allowed 5 to 10 minutes this morning for interchange with the group - which included three veterans of another difficult war, the one in Vietnam: Robert S. McNamara, Melvin R. Laird and James R. Schlesinger. Then the entire group was herded the Oval Office for what he called a "family picture." [my em]
...
They could have at least made it look good and blown an hour or so.
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