Diplomats Told to Take Cover in Baghdad

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080327/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/iraq_embassy;_ylt=AqD9N14vkj4ncVXz8DGYImys0NUE


I'm pretty certain that I'll have to edit out the link above if it wrecks the rest of this post's settings. In the event I do, here's the link to Tengrain's take on it. It's where I picked it up: Mock, Paper, Scissors

But, that being said, what I'm trying to get out is that this is way worse than the above article leads the reader to believe. (It's not Iran. I'm damned sure the Iranians aren't self destructive enough to give the current administration anything to blame them for. These rockets probably came from a 106-mm Recoilless rifle, not a 107-mikemike Chi-Com. A piece of Korean War Era weaponry.) It seems the Green Zone, that S/W Asian version of Mexico City's Zona Rosa... Wait, what!?!?! It's NOT?!?!?! Oh! Pardon my mistake. Anyway, the Green Zone is surrounded and rounds are falling inside the wire, and have been since Easter Sunday. (however, the Mission waits until Thursday to release an advisory to all personnel about it). Sunday Bloody Sunday. It's comforting to know the insurgents have a sense of humor almost as good as the VC did. Yet one more comparison this horrible waste of everything has in common with America's Trojan War.

Oh, now I remember what it was that 's the comparative to the Green Zone, it's not Zona Rosa. Silly me. No. It's... Khe Sahn.

FWIW...

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Blog Against Theocracy-2008

Ostara, 2008-CE:

We come around again, to that time of year, where we must remind ourselves that unless we're strong on the defensive and fleet of foot to stamp out spot-fires as they erupt, the, "Villagers with the torches", will not only come for us, (those NOT of the Body), but they'll have John Law, wearing his Sunday Best, in the passenger seat of the Model A, a picnic basket in his lap for after the festivities, too. If I live to be 400 I hope I never see someone afraid that,'They', (the people who thought Easy Rider had a happy ending), will come for someone on account of religious grounds, without hoping I'd be strong enough to stand at their side when the door crashes in and give one last swing of my pick-head ax. Wasn't, "Freedom from Fear", one of those 'Four Freedoms', World War Two, America as a nation and americanism as a philosophy was supposedly about? What ever happened to that?

I'm a Pagan and am de facto on the Monotheistic enemies-list because of it. No, "People of the Book"- Dhimmitude for me and mine. None of that, "Judeo-Christian Tradition", crap thrown around as when the X-ians want something from Jews, or Jews want something from X-ians, (think Dennis Prager). Nope. None of that stuff for we Pagans. So you could say that equal protection under the law, (especially when you're unimaginably outnumbered, worse than Custer and Henry V combined), is a good thing. Something worth protecting. Something worth hanging on to.

There are oh-so-many scary, crazy, phony religious-types on this planet, (and their multitude of 'true believers', right behind them), out to steer you wrong and make you live your life their way, that it's important to have a place where those nuts can't do it to anyone. Not only prohibited by law but proscribed by custom as well. Like child labor and child sacrifice before it, socio-political repression as it's manifesting currently in America with these, 'Jesus Freaks', subverting the liberal and accepting tenor of this country and her constitution, has to be stopped. They, these religious extremists, are an Avant-Garde, the shock-troops, for people who wish to turn back the calendar almost 1,500 years. Remember they didn't get called, "The Dark Ages", because there was something wrong with the Sun.

FWIW...

Boy In The Bubble

(words by Paul Simon; music by Paul Simon and Forere Motlobeloa)


It was a slow day
And the sun was beating
On the soldiers by the side of the road
There was a bright light
A shattering of shop windows
The bomb in the baby carriage
Was wired to the radio

These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry

It was a dry wind
And it swept across the desert
And it curled into the circle of birth
And the dead sand
Falling on the children
The mothers and the fathers
And the automatic earth
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry

It's a turn-around jump shot
It's everybody jump start
It's every generation throws a hero up the pop charts
Medicine is magical and magical is art
The Boy in the Bubble
And the baby with the baboon heart

And I believe
These are the days of lasers in the jungle
Lasers in the jungle somewhere
Staccato signals of constant information
A loose affiliation of millionaires
And billionaires and baby
These are the days of miracle and wonder
This is the long distance call
The way the camera follows us in slo-mo
The way we look to us all
The way we look to a distant constellation
That's dying in a corner of the sky
These are the days of miracle and wonder
And don't cry baby, don't cry
Don't cry.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Long Distance Call is right, reverse the charges, "Get me, Susie and our cats off this stinkin' rock before the Pig People complete their mission of sending everything to Hell in a hand-basket."

Signed, 'Me'.


FWIW...

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I See It's Been A While

Since last I posted anything here. Depression sucks. I did run across this at 'Mock,Paper,Scissors' tonight and thought it was worth knocking the cobwebs off'n this blog to put up the results.

BTW... It was totally wrong the first go around. Said my personality was keyed into, (Get this!) The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley, (Wrong bunch of Pagans LOL ) and tried to find a feedback form but took the quiz over again instead and thought about the answers a bit longer. The thumbnail sketch was much closer to reality the second time around. The quiz told me that I was keyed into...

You're Loosely Based!

by Storey Clayton

While most people haven't heard of you, you're a really good and
interesting person. Rather clever and witty, you crack a lot of jokes about the world
around you. You do have a serious side, however, where your interest covers the homeless
and the inequalities of society. You're good at bringing people together, but they keep
asking you what your name means.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

FWIW...

I Wonder If They'd STILL Agree If It Said Bush Was Nuts, Instead?

I’d hate to think that OBL did all this because Friday was my birthday. And I didn’t get him anything. Oh well. Then again what do you get a boogieman for his birthday, anyway? ‘Let’s Pretend’ games? Invisible tie? A tape of his own funeral? I dunno.

These dimbulbs at Powderline really are the dumbest fucknobs on planet earth, aren’t they? There was no fucking tape from anybody except the Bushco Labs Propaganda Division. (I’m sure you’ve seen their motto: "We Bring Good Things To Lies” ) OBL is either dead or being hidden under VERY deep cover in a place where no-one would ever think to look for him and yet when he supposedly surfaces TPTB immediately spray his mug all over every news show and broadcast on six continents, and the wingnuts believe it’s all true and eat it up like it was chocolate covered pretzels instead of the obvious propaganda it is.

I’m surprised. Has no-one in the fright-wing of the blogosphere have the ability to reflect on this and ask themselves, “Why is it, exactly, that OBL’s tape thing agrees with almost every aspect of my world view? About the war? Democrats? Pres. Bush? America’s way forward? And yet HE’s the enemy?”

I guess that they’re all too fucking stupid to see when they’re being led around by the nose, much less why their every taliking point is endorsed and repeated by Osama Bin Laden. Killer of innocents. Enemy of America and Life, itself…

I can’t even feel sorry for them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Originally posted at Sadly, No! 7 Sept 2007

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Fred Dates Hillary

Fred Reed, for any poor bastid that fell in here and has no idea about anything regarding either me or this blog, isn't perfect and I don't dogmatically agree with what he writes but this is probably the best explanation of the facts surrounding both the failing grade American health care gets and why Socialization of medical care in America is SO important. Unless, of course, you wanna look ME in the eye, as well, and say, "Fuck'em... I'm not paying a cent!", too.

You'll find your teeth at the door, with your hat, when you wake up.

Commy Sell-Out



August 8, 2007



In thinking about socialized medicine, a couple of points merit thought:

First, the people who are most against it least need it. Usually they are columnists of the political right and the people who read them. Columnists without exception are of intelligence above the average, as are almost all of their readers. With few if any exceptions, they are well educated. Consequently they tend to be prosperous, savvy, and very likely to have good insurance.

They also have little or, more likely, no real contact with anyone who might need socialized medicine. For example in Washington, which I know well, the klaxons of left and right berate each other from the cocktail parties of Georgetown and Cap Hill, eat in posh restaurants, and vacation in the Greek Isles. They do not know the people of the truck stops and gas stations.

Second, opponents of socialized medicine seem to think that such a system would be subject to exploitation by grifters and scam artists. They are right. Note that the grifters would not be people receiving care, but Republican doctors who would pad their bills and otherwise skim off unwatched cream. We are all against corruption until it is our turn at the trough. Note also that a woman with a broken leg does not pretend to have two broken legs so as to get an extra cast.

It seems to me that the underlying question is not that of socialized medicine but rather: What is our attitude as a nation toward people who are not very smart? Who furthermore are culturally impoverished? Who are among the substantial fraction of Americans who can barely read?

They exist in large numbers. Half the white population have IQs below 100. The proportion among various non-white groups is much higher. Throw in legal aliens with fourth-grade educations and little command of English, and people in small towns where the idea of going to college is only slightly stranger than that of going to Mars.

Few of them are welfare cheats. Usually they have worked hard all their lives. Often they vote Republican. They are just…”stupid” is unkind but perhaps best conveys their condition, though some of the apparent stupidity is in fact ignorance. They can’t balance a checkbook, must less understand rollovers on a 401(k). They don’t understand what 18% interest on a credit card means, and can’t read, much less understand, a contract. (“The party of the first part, hereinafter….”) They aren’t smart enough to be entrepreneurs. Very likely, they have never read a book in their lives.

Try to imagine never having read a book. You can’t do it.

Word-crafters of my acquaintance rail against Hillary for supporting socialized medicine. They seem to think that the beneficiaries of the program would be people like themselves, only shiftless. “I studied and worked my way up and made something of myself, and I take care of myself. Why don’t these lazy bastards to the same?” Easy. Because these of my friends have IQs averaging in excess of 140, while the lazy bastards (who in fact are neither) check in at maybe 90.

I often hear it said that people should be able to invest as they think best the payments they make into Social Security. Of course what is really going on is an attempt by stock funds to get their hands on lots of other people’s money. Still, the argument is made that freedom and free enterprise demand that government not take, etc. “It’s our money. Let us invest it.” This ignores the fact that over half the population is absolutely, irremediably, hermetically incapable of investing intelligently.

Now, what do we do with people who have obeyed all the fabled American rules, who have worked, perhaps at pathetic wages and no benefits, and never cheated, and been honest citizens, and then the bottling plant went to China and they’re old and have nothing? What?

We could be good social Darwinists and let them rot. They are not cutting edge people, not Verilog mechanics or optical engineers or hedge-fund managers. Who needs them? All right. If this is your position, say so. Look me in the eye and say, “Screw’em. I don’t care what happens to them and I’m not going to spend a red cent on them.” Say this, and I will understand you.

An obstacle to thought here is that the people in the editorial suites and cocktail parties are twiddlers of abstractions. Waving a shrimp speared on a toothpick, holding a glass of vintage Sobriquet, they speak of second-order supply side multiplier effects of marginal increases in labor costs and what Burke and Adam Smith said. You’ve seen their websites: “Rothman on Kleinfelter.” “Kleinfelter on Fergweiler.” “Fergweiler on Theftwunkel.” Intellectual sparring is their world.

It’s different to Mary Sal Wooten in a decaying trailer somewhere on 301 South, with her retinas peeling like wallpaper from diabetic retinopathy, ankles swollen and darkening toward gangrene, and the hospital won’t take her because it isn’t an emergency and she can’t afford her medicine. Really, truly no-shit can’t afford it.

What do we do with people like her? People who just flat can’t handle the complexity of today’s world? It seems to me that anyone who wants to think about socialized medicine has to answer that question before starting.

When I was a kid in King George Country, Virginia, the answer commonly was the federal government. Dahlgren Naval Proving Grounds was there. It hired a lot of the local country kids, rednecks as we now say, as gate guards, truck drivers, maintenance workers, and so on. These jobs legitimately needed doing, and those hired did them well. The jobs carried benefits and pensions. But the private sector won’t if it can avoid it.

What other solutions are available? Many say, “It’s a job for private charity.” This is another way of saying, “Screw’em, I ain’t paying a cent.” Yet others say cut taxes and the resulting economic boom will lift all boats. This is another way of saying, “Screw’em, I ain’t paying a cent.”

But let’s at least have the dignity to say what we mean. The truth is that large numbers of people cannot take care of themselves beyond showing up at work every day and spinning lug nuts on the assembly line. They aren’t going to invest wisely from youth because they aren’t smart enough. Employers aren’t going to provide retirements unless forced to. Hospitals won’t take them if they can avoid it. Do we say, “Screw’em, let’em croak”? Apparently. Then let’s say so plainly.

.

FWIW...

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PDB 08/06/01, A Fateful Day

Six years... Six l-o-n-g years.

This picture, above, is purported to be from 06 Aug 2001, of the Preznit getting his morning briefing. The famous warning of, "OBL determined to strike in America", that Condi later, covering for her Husband, said, "How could ANYONE expect something the magnitude of 9/11 to have been on it's way???" Or words to that effect. It all happened on that halcyon day, back then, six years ago today.

I wrote that the picture is touted to be from that fateful day we're remembering today but I have a funny feeling this pic is bent. Now I believe the people responsible for making this pic available for everyone to use in this blogswarm, that the photo is the real thing from Crawford etc. And I believe IN them too, they're wonderful people who want America to be America, again. Not america inc. Anyway... Looking at this picture with a heightened level of scrutiny due to mistrust in the administration, I have a feeling that there are a few touch-ups or airbrushed out things in it. Such as the longneck in Preznit Drinky's left hand. Also, I think the White House Photo Dept, air-brushed in, on the back of his head, (because he isn't wearing it while on vacation), his usual shoddy hairpiece or toupee or whatever they call them these days. I'm sure there's quite a few more if I found a version of the photo that wasn't keyholed but, shit, those two examples are enough to make me hate myself for not noticing until very, very, much later that this bunch were on an eight year Kamikaze mission to satisfy no-one but themselves, and take America down with them when they leave...

For Paraguay or Dubai or some other place they can't be extradited from. With all the money they stole.