Mixed Report

The ever optimistic Washington Post reports the new report from the Pentagon is "mixed". I guess going from one Iraqi battalion able to stand alone last fall to now ZERO able to stand alone is worthy of a "mixed" review.
How can all the money, lives and effort of three years be producing negative results? I am just flabbergasted at this. This is absoulutely outrageous.

To be fair they now say that the number Iraqi battalions that can do battle with U.S. assistance is higher. Three years and this is all we have to show for it?

Oh, but there is good news to report though, as it says the insurgency is now"losing steam" and that it really doesn't even qualify to be called an insurgency. I suppose all the people in the streets waving guns and protesting on TV are just a figment. Damn straight it is not an insurgency anymore but it is definitely a freaking CIVIL WAR.

You can bet your ass that Bush and company will paint this as progress and just part of the democratic process.

The Edge

We're over it. The edge that is. It toast...put fork in it...it's done. There is a certain point in an evolution like this when you know that it is so screwed that you need to start collecting your marbles and begin looking toward home.

I'm pretty sure that's your Momma callin'.

138 Iraqis Killed In Last 24 Hours...7 US Soldiers Killed... Talks Suspended On Forming Gov't... Troops Can’t Stop Bloodshed... Thousands March In Protest…

Out of Place

This is probably out of place for a 50 something male but for some reason I find it necesary to comment on the new South Dakota Abortion Law.

I haven't any moral authority on this issue because I will never have to face the decision on whether or not to abort a fetus is the correct decision. You will notice that I very pointedly did NOT use the term "right" decision.

I think my biggest issue is with the bunch of sanctimonious legislators sticking their uninformed noses into someone else's very personal and emotional decision. This is especially true when Tbogg does us the service of giving us an example of the mature, sexually secure and emotionally centered type that made this decision. Holy crap! Since when did the women of South Dakota turn over all their reproductive rights to a chubby, single, convenience store clerk? The insanity is that by proxy this same twit will probably be making the same decision for every woman in America since we all know that this is about testing the mettle of the New Improved Supreme Court.

Shakespeare's Sis, Pandagon, Digby and Redd and Jane at Firedoglake and others are doing a great job of covering this from the female side so I won't try and talk about something I can only imagine on an intellectual level. Let me just say though, that any law that forbids abortion when the pregnancy has resulted from rape or incest is a sick and perverted thing that has no place in a humane and just society. I would love to hear you try and convince me that a rapist has the right and privilege to have his genes passed on to the next generation and the same applies to incest. I would also like to hear the argument that a deformed fetus that will surely die at birth or soon after must be carried to term.
These are sick, sick people.

Recognizing Failure is Not Un-American

This might be GOOD news. I hope so. The Democrats seem to be rallying around a plan for redeploying troops in Iraq to other areas in the region. I am concerned that the Democratic leadership is calling it a ”redeployment" and NOT a "withdrawal" is sending the wrong message. Evidently, opinion research has discovered that “withdrawal” doesn’t play well in the heartland. I am inclined to believe however, that with the majority of the country wanting us to withdraw from Iraq we should step out there and not mince words. I would think it is time to start taking the initiative. Using the word “redeployment” seems to weaken the reality of what is at stake here.

What's at stake? The consistently incompetent Bush and his minions allowed us to be attacked. They then used that attack and “cherry-picked” intelligence to invade a country that was in no way complicit in the attack. They invaded Iraq with no plan for the aftermath and we are now embroiled in a conflict that cannot be won militarily as more than one expert has indicated. We have lost 2277 men and women as of today with another nearly 17,000 wounded and there is still no plan for “victory” or to bring our children home. Because of the unmitigated disaster in Iraq, the horribly misguided and ineffective War on Terror and its allied torture and lawless imprisonments we are an international pariah. Our military is dangerously overstretched and in spite of their desire to do so cannot effectively respond to other important issues (Katrina and Iran come to mind).

We dare not lose sight of what is happening and where this country is heading and calling this a “redployment” is giving too much credit and not enough discredit to the people who brought us to this.

The message from the Democrats should be that we are the party with a plan to address Bush’s and the GOP’s disaster in Iraq. We mustn’t let the right wing spin machine continue to paint us as un-American for recognizing that Bush and his administration are a bumbling, corrupt, incompetent failures. We should not be ashamed of wanting to pick up pieces of the American dream and to do something positive about getting our asses out of this double-damned war. We should also let the American people know that there is nothing un-patriotic about recognizing a failure in Iraq and seeing that there is nothing to be gained from "staying the course" except more death and a decisive option to get our people out of harm's way is not “cutting and running”.

Hidden Agenda

This is a follow-up to my post here on the take over of port management at a half dozen U.S. ports by state owned Dubai Ports World which is controlled by the United Arab Emirates.

Bush is refusing to budge on this and has even trotted out Chertoff, and Condi to dismiss concerns by a whole raft of people on both sides of the aisle about the control of New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia, New Orleans, Baltimore and Miami falling into the hands of known terrorism supporters at worst and enablers at best.

There is a piece in the San Jose Mercury News noting that Treasury Secretary John Snow, who's department has sign-off on such deals, is not necessarily lily white. Remember that Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.

Note also that David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations was tapped by Bush just last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration.

You have to also question why this deal was fast-tracked through the review process in less than 25 days when Congress requires a longer 45 day review when a foreign government is involved and national security may be impacted.

There is some political fallout risk for Bush to continue to back this obviously devisive issue and in light of the track record of this administration you cannot help but wonder what the rest of the story is. I find it hard to believe that we see all of the iceberg here. What other "deal" with the UAE is hanging fire and what is Bush and company's stake in it. I might be cynical but I suspect that this deal for the ports is merely a stepping stone for something even bigger that will net Bush and his cronies even more money, if not directly then indirectly.

If I have learned nothing in the last 6 years dealing with this bunch is that you take nothing at face value and that if you assume the least favorable result for the American people you will probably be right. It's a tragedy but it's true.

UPDATE: Does is give you a warm and fuzzy feeling inside like it does me that Bush didn't even know about this until it hit the press? Yet he is ready to grab his crotch and veto any attempt to delay or examine it closer. What a maroon.

Fair Warning

Mustang Bobby gets to the job of commenting on Leonard Pitts' column in the Miami Herald before I do and does his usual excellent job.

The column begins;

The enemies of freedom will be defeated.

-- President George W. Bush, 2005

We have met the enemy and he is us.

-- Pogo, 1971

The following happened in the United States of America on Feb. 9 of this year.

The scene is the Little Falls branch of the Montgomery County Public Library in Bethesda, Md. Business is going on as usual when two men in uniform stride into the main reading room and call for attention. Then they make an announcement: It is forbidden to use the library's computers to view Internet pornography.

As people are absorbing this, one of the men challenges a patron about a website he is visiting and asks the man to step outside. At this point, a librarian intervenes and calls the uniformed men aside. A police officer is summoned. The men leave. It turns out they are employees of the county's department of Homeland Security and were operating way outside their authority.

Walt Kelly first used that phrase "We have met the enemy and he is us." on Earth Day in 1970 and I have always thought it one of the most profound sentences ever uttered. Leonard Pitts does the usual excellent job of distilling the salient facts and making sure the reader does not miss the root of the issue however I am not so sure Leonard is strong enough in his implications.

In spite of what you may wish to believe, this country is on the fastrack to becoming a fascist state. We are losing freedoms at an ever increasing pace and the trend is accelerating. Out leaders only give lip service to our needs and only respond with any true action when the corporate fat cats speak. A little research upon fascism will show you that this is the definition of fascism.

While the terrorist may kill a few or a lot of us the most dangerous people are those that take our hard won liberties for granted and place their unswerving trust in their elected leaders to do the right thing. They can kill us all.

How Long Can a Polar Bear Tread Water?

I guess everything Bush and novelist Michael Crichton discussed and pooh-poohed about the threat of global warning was spot on and the little detail about this being the first time in memory that the Great Lakes have been ice free in mid winter is nothing to get alarmed about.

I'm sure it is just an aberration but if one had any "chicken little" tendencies it might be something to set them off.

"There's essentially no ice at all," said George Leshkevich, a scientist who has studied Great Lakes ice for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, since 1973. "I've never seen that."

What me worry? Not at all worried about Greenland melting 10 times faster than thought. Nope, not thinking about all the drowning polar bears either.

It's interesting to see what the always lovely and talented Fred Barnes says about Bush and the ridiculous theories about Global Warming.

In his new book about Mr. Bush, "Rebel in Chief: Inside the Bold and Controversial Presidency of George W. Bush," Fred Barnes recalls a visit to the White House last year by Michael Crichton, whose 2004 best-selling novel, "State of Fear," suggests that global warming is an unproven theory and an overstated threat.

Mr. Barnes, who describes Mr. Bush as "a dissenter on the theory of global warming," writes that the president "avidly read" the novel and met the author after Karl Rove, his chief political adviser, arranged it. He says Mr. Bush and his guest "talked for an hour and were in near-total agreement."

Georgie I'm as big a fan of science fiction as you will find but I do recognize it as fiction. I haven't read Mr Crichton's book but I do remember that he is a FUCKING SCIENCE FICTION WRITER!

Coon in the Chicken Coop

VIA John at AmericaBlog

It seems to me to be the last thing we want to do if we are going to maintain a high security profile at our ports. Hell, I wouldn't outsource operations of our major ports to my mother for Goddess's sake. For my money the ports are our most vulnerable access point and the most likely candidates for our next terrorist event. Do all of Bushes rabid followers know that this is how Dear Leader is protecting them. I would like to see maiden Coulter's take on this.

The Bush administration has outsourced the operation of six of the nation’s largest ports to a company owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a country with troubling ties to international terrorism. The $6.8 billion sale would mean that the state-controlled Dubai Ports World would control “the ports of New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia.”

Some facts about the UAE:

– The UAE was one of three countries in the world to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

– The UAE has been a key transfer point for illegal shipments of nuclear components to Iran, North Korea and Lybia.

– According to the FBI, money was transferred to the 9/11 hijackers through the UAE banking system.

– After 9/11, the Treasury Department reported that the UAE was not cooperating in efforts to track down Osama Bin Laden’s bank accounts.

UPDATE: Georgia10 at KOS has the complete 411 on this whole deal here

First Lady of Southern Food

One of my cooking icons passed away earlier this week. I had the chance to meet her at Bulloch Hall here in Roswell, get her autograph in my copy of her first book "The Taste of Country Cooking" and spend a glorious 45 minutes or so talking with her about food and cooking. It is a favorite memory.

It was here in Roswell that Scott Peacock Her caretaker for the last 7 or 8 years and the chef at Watershed, put on an 80th birthday party at historic Bulloch Hall. Alice Waters sent produce. Peacock cooked the meal over an open hearth. It was an interesting relationship and one that that was very special for both of them. It always amazed me how a forty-ish, gay chef from Alabama wound up being such a soul mate and eventually caretaker for an old black woman.

Edna was the granddaughter of a Virginia slave and was born on April 13 (Thomas Jefferson's birthday), 1916, in Freetown, Va., a community of former slaves, and against all odds, created a shrine to great food at tiny Café Nicholson in New York. The café was an icon hosting such 20th-century luminaries as Truman Capote, Greta Garbo, Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner.

She was the Southern answer to Julia Child and influenced myriad cooks (including yours truly) around the country and insured the preservation of many of the South's disappearing food traditions. To quote Alice Waters, "Edna Lewis had the hands and soul of a great artist, and like all great artists, she had something of which the rest of us know little or nothing."

In 1995, the James Beard Foundation gave her its first Living Legend Award. In 1998, Saveur magazine placed her at No. 9 on its list of 100 favorite things, calling her its "favorite Southern cook and national treasure." And in 1999, she received the Southern Foodways Alliance's Lifetime Achievement Award and was named a grande dame by Les Dames d'Escofier International.

She was a fine lady and I am very happy to have met and talked with her. She will be happy to know that her cookbooks, especially the first, are two of my favorites and I am trying to keep the traditions alive as well.

Photo courtesy the Atlanta Journal-Constitution/Jaroslav Kanka/Special

Just in Time for the Rain

Back to Atlanta in time for a rainy and chilly weekend. All of my good intentions to get out and some serious walking this weekend are pretty much shot. Don't say it...I know I am a wimp for letting a little freezing rain stop me from walking.
Going out in few though and go to historic Barrington Hall here in Roswell for a demonstration of African cookery in honor of Black History Month and also to see their exhibit of antique folk pottery including some Dave jars. For those of you that are not into folk pottery- Dave was a slave in South Carolina around Edgefield famous for his large storage jars and the fact that he was literate enough to inscribe them with poems and Bible verse. It should be worth a trip in the cold rain as thee jars are very rare and there are very few remaining examples.

I think the rest of the afternoon is going to be spent braising some veal shanks for dinner.

Heckuva Job Boys

Bush just loves our boys and girls in uniform and really, really respects and honors the job they are doing all over the world protecting us from the terrorists. In fact, he thinks so much of the job they are doing that he is proposing to give them a whopping 2.2% pay increase. Did I mention this is the lowest increase since 1994.

Senator John Kerry is leading a coalition of other Senators in trying to get this increase to a meaningful amount.

“Our troops are sacrificing so much, in every corner of the world. Shortchanging them and the families who love them is a lousy way to say thanks,” said Kerry, who authored the letter.

“Our military deserves leadership that matches their service and patriotism. Getting our troops the pay raise they deserve is the very least we can do to show how much we value everything they do for us. I’m going to fight for a fair military pay raise until it becomes a reality, and I thank my colleagues who have joined me in doing so,” added Kerry.

I don't know know about you but I can feel the love radiating from the Whitehouse.

Blood Money

via Marketwatch

Halliburton Co., coming off a banner year in the energy sector and flush with Pentagon contracts abroad, announced Thursday a series of measures to share the spoils with shareholders.

The Houston-based company said its board of directors approved a two-for-one stock split that would double its shares outstanding to 2 billion. Stockholders must still sign off on the split.
The quarterly dividend for Halliburton stock was also raised 20% to 15 cents a share. The higher payout is set for March 23 for shareholders as of March 2.

A $1 billion share buyback is also in the works, the company said.

How much of the blood dripping windfall will wind up in Cheney and Dubya's pockets? Maybe Rumsfool will get a cut and let's not forget Abu Gonzales, Feith and all the rest.

How much Halliburton stock do you own Mr. and Mrs. America? How much Halliburton stock do you think the 1000 or so widows, widowers and some 2000 children now without fathers and mothers hold?

Maybe Halliburton will set aside some to help us pay off the 500 Billion or so we have spent so far on their cash cow. I know I'm counting on it.

Baby Jesus Does Dirty Dick

Just catching up with all that is happening in my personal universe of blogtopia (see blogroll) and you really need to check in on Neil Shakespeare. He seems to have oversdosed on Deadeye Dick and has produced a long series of collages and narratives that address the current flap. Of course Baby Jesus, who can't miss a dustup, is also up to his holy ass in the thing. Travel over there and enjoy the whole series.

Straight Shooter Wanted

Don't ya love it when the chickens come home to roost? Bush's approval is slipping again.

I believe the American people are beginning to figure out Bush now and it is dawning on them that he's kind of dim, ineffective, and not a very deep thinker and reacts childishly to outside forces ( leading to unnecessary wars and more), and they're fed up. They are waiting for the Democrats to show some leadership and provide them with some alternative.

They actually realized what a miserable failure Bush was before the last election but fell into the trap of fear that Rove and company has blanketed the country with for the last 6 years.

Now the dear factor is waring off too and they are no longer willing to be deluded into believing that Bush and company can protect us and that, in fact, they have made us unsafer. This is a great opportunity for progressives to take back the leadership of the country but we need a plan and some courage to stand up and fight for what is right. Not only that but we need a true leader that will shoot straight and deliver the progressive message.

Misplaced Priorities

Just a question. How is it that so many devout Muslim's can get their righteous outrage whipped up over some cartoons, regardless of how incorrect they may be, and haven't seen fit to be outraged and demonstrative over how many of their fellow Muslims we have managed to kill and torture in Iraq, Afganistan and Cuba? It just seems to me that we should have seen riots and burnings of flags and Western businesses long before now. I would think that that the time for hostility towards the Americans and Westerners in general would have long been past. Surely they haven't bought into the Bushian claptrap that we are bringing democracy to the middle east and securing the world against terrorism.
Before someone jumps my case over my insensitivity to the beliefs of Muslims and the seriousness of the blaspheming cartoons let me admit that I am woefully ignorant of the Islamic faith but I think the question needs to be asked. The time for outrage is long overdue in my uninformed world view.

Don't Forget

The news has been preoccupied with Dirty Dick and I haven't seen a mention of the fallout from his real crimes.
As of today 32 American service people have died in Iraq this month(a little over 2/day) and that brings the total up to 2273. Did I mention that 16,653 more Americans have been wounded in Iraq.

Source

Bad Start

This is going to be one of those days.

Had to get up a little earlier that normal as some idiot scheduled me for a conference call at 0630. Made a pot of coffee without the essential ingredient...do over with coffee this time. Conference call with a client that won't let you finish a sentence so a very frustrating 30 minutes. While attempting to pour off the accumulated whey from a brand new quart of organic yogurt managed to pour all but two tablespoons of same down the disposer. Can't wait to see what the rest of the day brings.

MIA

Truly sorry to the regular visitors here about the dearth of activity. I fully intended to spend some quality time on the nets and blogger for the last two nights. The reality turned out to be sleep instead. I sat down in front of the laptop last night and started through the blogroll and the next thing I know I am waking up in the same position only it is two hours later. I gave up and crashed. I guess the travel challenges from Sunday night and Monday morning took more out of me than I realized. Couple this with the fact that I am spending all day deep in complex data, researching client data issues and coaching users through the final stages of system acceptance and you have a formula for wearing an old man down to a nub.

Not scheduled to travel next week or the week after so maybe I can get the batteries charged. Bear with me.

Measure of a Man

I am too jet lagged and otherwise disgusted to comment at any length on Dirty Dick's little adventure. If you want the 411 then visit the always astute ReddHedd at Firedoglake. She covers the deal from A to Z and there is nothing material I can really add. There are a lot of comments by people with hunting quail than I.

My comment is only about the character of a person that considers it sport to shoot caged raised birds. This is an excellent measure of someone's fundamental character. This is not the first example of Cheney shooting birds in a wholesale slaughter just for kicks. There is no redeeming aspect to this practice and it shows how little value Cheney puts on life and honor.

It is quite obvious that this misadventure was caused by some combination of idiocy and alcohol and the only reason that news was delayed for 24 hours was that that there was a requirement to clear Cheney's blood of some highly overpriced booze. Give me another plausible excuse.

Serious Travel

I have survived the travel day from hell and am safely ensconsed at the the client in Sunnyvale. I like to travel in Sunday evenings when I come to the West Coast as it just seems I am able to hit the ground running with a better attitude. Yesterday was a different story. The original aircraft that was scheduled to fly us to San Jose had a medical emergency after it left LA and had to stop in Phoenex and therefore didn't arrive in Atlanta until an hour after we were supposed to depart at 540pm. Then it was quarantined?. New plane finally arrived at the gate at 730pm and after all the prep we boarded at about 815pm. Backed out of the gate at 845pm and the starboard engine wouldn't start. New plane. Finally departed Atanta at just after 11pm 5 hours late. Needless to say we didn't get to San Jose until just after 1am and I finally got to the hotel at 2am. Thank the Goddess we were able to get a waiver from the operations folks at SJC since normally the airport is curfewed after 1130pm. They let us land anyway and while the airport was basically shut down we got through. Many of the travelers were then stuck since all but Hertz and Avis rental car agents were closed for the day. Lucky for me I am a dedicated Hertz guy and dodged that bullet. All in all a challenging day of travel and not one you should like to duplicate.

Being the dedicated trooper that I am I am here at the client bright and bushy tailed at 8am though my eyes feel like two "pee" holes in the snow. Fortuneately this client is a coffee loving bunch and there is a bounteous supply of good French Roast and even an espresso machine if I get desparate.

Will try and catch up on all the goings on this evening if I don't crash at 6pm.