First snow

We've had our first snow of the 2006/2007 season. Just a dusting and it'll be gone soon.

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Rebuke in Iran to Its President on Nuclear Role

In the hazy world of Iranian politics, such a public rebuke was seen as a sign that the supreme leader — who has final say on all matters of state — might no longer support the president as the public face of defiance to the West.

It is the first sign that Mr. Ahmadinejad has lost any degree of Ayatollah Khamenei’s confidence, a potentially damaging development for a president who has rallied his nation and defined his administration by declaring nuclear power Iran’s “inalienable right.”

It was unclear, however, whether this was merely an effort to improve Iran’s public image by lowering Mr. Ahmadinejad’s profile or was signaling a change in policy.

Surprising. I'm wondering, as everyone is, why the Ayatollah would be pulling back on Ahmadinejad's strings. Western opposition and objections have never dictated policy in the past... so why now? Something else, other than the UN resolution and losing economic stability (nothing to be sneered at but it's not a huge issue yet), is going on. It'll be a while before anyone figures out what the other issues are, I'm sure.

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"The administration's reservoir of historical analogies seems limited to the 1914-1991 period. And it's all about Europe," said Adam Garfinkle, a former Rice speechwriter who edits the foreign-policy journal The American Interest. "No one in a senior position in this administration seems to have even the vaguest notion of modern Middle Eastern history."

That's surprising? How Rice Uses History Lessons is an interesting article in the WSJ. It's only available for today, unless you are a subscriber.

She tends to portray events, particularly the clash between what she calls "moderation" and "extremism" in the Middle East, as driven by huge, almost inevitable forces that make diplomacy impractical, or even irrelevant. Critics say such a view has made Washington's top diplomat less flexible in policy making -- and less adept in old-style negotiation and hand-holding, whose results also can be hard to quantify in the short term.

Those who clamor for sitting down with Syria and Iran are out of touch with what Ms. Rice calls "the underlying forces."

"There's a tendency to think about diplomacy as something that is done untethered to the conditions underlying it or the balance underlying it," she said. "In fact, that's not the way that it works. You aren't going to be successful as a diplomat if you don't understand the strategic context in which you are actually negotiating. It is not deal-making."

What I've believed all along is that a she's unsuited to the job because Security and Diplomacy require opposing mindsets. Can one be good at National Security and Diplomacy? Perhaps, but it was take an extremely well-rounded, well-educated and naturally diplomatic person to accomplish that. I don't think Rice is any of those things - hence, her inability to deal with the nightmare she had an huge hand in creating.

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I wonder if anyone is listening.

Fed Chief warns of crisis over elderly entitlements:

"If early and meaningful action is not taken, the U S economy could be seriously weakened, with future generations bearing much of the cost," Bernanke said yesterday at a Senate Budget Committee hearing.

I've never believed in the US governments ability to provide for me in my old age. I don't believe any government should provide for its citizens from cradle to grave. Social Security distributions, when I'm in my 60's, if they materialize, will be for added savings or nice "extras" like travel - it's not going to support me. Anyone in my age group needs to wake up to the realization that our Social Security deductions are funding our parents retirement - that money will not be there for us in 30 years. If you're over 30, you better be socking away 25% of your gross income each year to live on when you are 65. Otherwise, you're screwed. That 50 inch HDTV with all the bells in whistles won't provide you with a roof over your head or food on your table 30 years from now. Make do with fewer latte's and vacations so you can survive your senior years in comfort instead of worry. Do you really want to be robbing Peter to pay Paul when you are 65? 70? It sucks enough now as it is, doesn't it?

[/end lecture]

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Forgot the pron update. Since January 15th there have been 237 visitors. Of that number 214 have arrived here searching for variations of L l K.

Maybe I should contact these women and sell them some ad space here?

Stories like this make me wish I lived somewhere else.

According to Snopes, this is a true story.

Man pays $200 for 3 snowballs for daughters:

Chris Hansen, a firefighter from Milford, Conn., said he bought the snow for his daughters, ages 12, 14, and 16.

Fools and their money are soon parted. Why couldn't that fool be from Rhode Island or Vermont?

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I didn't watch The Decider on 60 Mintues last night. I don't need the aggrivation. AMERICAblog covers it quite well.

My favorite quote from the show:

“Well, I strongly disagree with that, of course,” Bush says. “So I strongly reject that this administration hasn’t been straight with the American people. The minute we found out they didn’t have weapons of mass destruction, I was the first to say so.”

What? WHAT? When the hell did that happen?

Never, is the answer. Infuckingcredible.

If The Decider got paid by the lie we could pay down the debt load he's left us.

Impeachment still off the table Ms. Pelosi?

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Ever since I posted the January 9th blog entry I've had the most amazing upsurge in visitors. 385 in less than a week, when most weeks barely pass 30. There are three little words to explain what is going on here. I'm not telling you what they are (you can guess) because I really don't want Google to continue to spider me when it goes out to search for those three little words. If you search those three little words you will find me at number three on the Google list.

For the most part this is funny, but I gotta wonder about people. The visitors are from Greece, North Korea, Japan, India, Turkey, Iran, Canada, several locations in the UK, Pakistan, Sweden, France, Spain, Italy and my all-time favorite, Unknown, with a whopping 129 visitors, which beats number three, Canada, with only 35 visitors. 49 countries in all. I love that I have an international "audience", but not so much for the topic, you know? I don't care what ya'll do in the privacy of your own home, but being associated with pron (mis-spelled on purpose) isn't exactly something that fills me with the warm and gigglies. And yet... it's very funny too.

So, international blog lurkers, come for the pron, stay for the insanity, okay? Oh, and post once in awhile. Just don't complain about the lack of pron here.

Remove the wrapper from the turkey before cooking

The US-Iran-Iraq-Israeli-Syrian War:

At a not-for-quotation pre-speech briefing on Jan. 10, George W. Bush and his top national security aides unnerved network anchors and other senior news executives with suggestions that a major confrontation with Iran is looming.

Commenting about the briefing on MSNBC after Bush's nationwide address, NBC's Washington bureau chief Tim Russert said "there's a strong sense in the upper echelons of the White House that Iran is going to surface relatively quickly as a major issue - in the country and the world - in a very acute way."

Russert and NBC anchor Brian Williams depicted this White House emphasis on Iran as the biggest surprise from the briefing as Bush stepped into the meeting to speak passionately about why he is determined to prevail in the Middle East.

"The President's inference was this: that an entire region would blow up from the inside, the core being Iraq, from the inside out," Williams said, paraphrasing Bush.

I watched this on MSNBC Wednesday night. While the men were serious and little freaked out by the briefing, I doubt it's had much impact on them. When the conversation got to this point:

MSNBC's Chris Matthews then interjected, "And it could be the rationale for going into Iran at some point."

Russert paused for a few seconds before responding, "It's going to be very interesting to watch that issue and we have to cover it very, very carefully and very exhaustively."

I laugh out loud. It was not a happy laugh. The 4th Estate has done a seriously piss-poor job for the past six years. I have no faith, no hope, in that changing.

So, Bush's actions and rhetoric over the past several weeks continue to mesh with a scenario for a wider regional war - a possibility that now mainstream journalists, such as Tim Russert, are beginning to take seriously.

Don't count on it Mr. Parry.

See the Professor's take on the attack of the US Embassy in Athens. And expect this to happen with more frequency folks.

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There is hope for this sorry-assed country afterall: Bush's approval rating hits new low.

Public approval of Congress has edged up a bit now that Democrats are back in control, but it's still nothing to write home about. Approval for the way Congress is handling its job rose to 32 percent in the latest AP-Ipsos poll, up from a meager 27 percent a month earlier. That puts Congress on par with President Bush, whose 32 percent approval rating represents a new low for him in AP-Ipsos polling.

Will you put impeachment back on the table now, Ms. Pelosi?

Oh, and while you're at it, Ms. Pelosi, do something about this wonderful economy Mr. Bush has given us:

Study: 744,000 Are Homeless in US:

"In the last 12 to 18 months, the homeless population has essentially exploded in Philadelphia," said Marsha Cohen, executive director of the Homeless Advocacy Project, which provides free legal services to the homeless in Philadelphia. "We are seeing big increases in singles and families, both on the street and attempting to enter the homeless system."

"It's a whole influx of new people, and that's the really scary part," Cohen said.

Please take a look at Homeless & Crisis Assistance, at Charity.com; it's a list of charities which provide help to the homeless. Give if you can.


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Alaska stargazers excited about comet:

NASA astronomer Tony Phillips says Comet McNaught is the brightest comet visible from Earth in 30 years. It is six times brighter than Hale-Bopp in 1997, and 100 times brighter than Halley's Comet when it appeared in 1986, Phillips told The Associated Press on Thursday.

"It will remain a spectacular comet for weeks, perhaps months, in the Southern Hemisphere," Phillips said. "It could emerge as the brightest comet in recorded history."

Cool! Actually, COLD! 40 degrees below zero. It's information like that that keeps in me in New England. One of these days I'll get to Alaska, just not in January.

I'm not a happy camper today.

I listened to Bush's speech last night. He threatened Iran and then we invaded the Iranian embassy in Iraq, in effect making good on this threat.

He's pursuing global war, in my opinion. I have zero faith in the Congress stopping him. He has issued over 700 signing statements to legislation passed by Congress which were sent to him to be signed, effectively changing the intent of Congress without anyone stopping him. He has stated that the Constitution is "just a goddamn piece of paper", proving, in my opinion, that he feels he may do whatever he damn well pleases. He will just sign us off into global war and Congress will do nothing.

See Informed Comment.



In other news, the other Senator from Connecticut, Christopher Dodd, has filed to run for President in 2008.

Dodd is chairman of the Senate Banking Committee and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He was a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic during the 1960s. He is a leading voice in the Senate on Latin American issues. He is also known for his work on health care and children's issues.

He is also an idiot. And yet, he could barbeque kittens and roll little old ladies for their Bingo money and this freakin' State would still send him to the Senate. The only good thing about Dodd is he isn't Lieberman.

Whether it's online or in the real world, I do seem to attract some interesting "characters" into my life.

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Tomorrow is World AIDS Day.


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Afghan Autopsy

After a month traveling around Afghanistan this autumn, I was forced to a grim conclusion: This project is lost, and nothing very good will likely replace it. The reasons for the international community’s failure here are several. First, there are the immediate blunders of the occupiers who, despite extensive European involvement, are led by the Americans. Next are deeper historical dynamics dating back to the U.S. role in the anti-Soviet jihad. And finally there are much older cultural, political and economic facts about Afghanistan that have long made this a wild, lawless place, impervious to conquest and even resistant to the modernizing efforts of its urban middle classes.

Learning to Live with the Ayatollahs

How in the world did George W. Bush manage to turn Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the “Supreme Leader” of “Axis of Evil” Iran, into a prophet of peace in the Middle East?

Good question Mr. Scheer.

So it is that Iraqi President Jalal Talabani was so desperate in his pleas to the ayatollah, admitting that “We are in dire need of Iran’s help in establishing security and stability in Iraq.”

Of course he is, because six years of Bush’s foreign policy has had the presumably unintended consequences of elevating radicals and theocrats into positions of dominance throughout the region, from Iraq, Lebanon, the West Bank and even, this past week, to the oil emirate Bahrain, where Shiite and Sunni radical Islamists split elections in an upset.

Bits and pieces

I love this story!

Kansas woman, 95, prepares for final exams:

On Friday, the last day before fall break, her family and fellow classmates threw her an impromptu birthday party during her Biblical Studies class. Her son, Alan Ochs, flew in from Jetmore for the occasion. Her granddaughter, Alexandra Ochs, didn't have to travel as far — she's in the same class as her grandmother.

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Deja Vu isn't just a movie starring Denzel Washington. White House Brushes Off CIA Report on Iran

"The CIA found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency," according to the article.

Read also: White House ‘Stovepiping’ Iran Intelligence.

Israeli forces launch raids in Gaza

"I emphasize that our hand is outstretched in peace, but anybody who rejects it ... should know that ... we will do all we can to sever the hand which uses terror," Peretz said in a speech carried by Israeli radio.

"We have no intention of making concessions to anybody, we have no intention of being dragged in to reoccupying Gaza, but we have every intention of protecting our citizens."

Six Muslim Imams removed from U.S. airliner

The six Muslim scholars were returning from a conference in Minneapolis of the North American Imams Federation, said Shahin, president of the group. Five of them were from the Phoenix-Tempe area, while one was from Bakersfield, Calif., he said.

Three of them stood and said their normal evening prayers together on the plane, as 1.7 billion Muslims around the world do every day, Shahin said. He attributed any concerns by passengers or crew to ignorance about Islam.

“I never felt bad in my life like that,” he said. “I never. Six imams. Six leaders in this country. Six scholars in handcuffs. It’s terrible.”

Five years of being terrorized by our own government leads to this. We're afraid of six men praying. So it isn't surprising to read that U.S. is most unfriendly country to visitors.

Gore Vidal: Living Through History, an interview with Robert Scheer.

Fantastic interview. There are some great lines here:

I’m now a creationist. Because the distance from George Washington to George W. Bush makes a monkey out of Darwin.

There are a few crazies who want to cheer the flag and this yappy little terrier as though he were a real president—well he’s not a real president. He’s a thing, a chimera who was put together by the supreme court, first time around, and reelected by Diebold, Sequoia and some other interested parties. Everybody knows he isn’t there. Or what is there isn’t for us—it’s not our president. We do have a real, uh, a shadow president in vice president Cheney, whose wife is a famous novelist given to tales of unnatural love...But Lynne, more power to you. She’s my kind of novelist.

And sobering:

So this election, coming up, although it’s a mere off-year, this is the on year election of all our lives. And if we don’t turn it around the right way, we’re not going to have representative government. We’re not going to have the people’s voice ever again expressed quadrennially in the presidential election, because they can falsify it each time now. So now’s the time to use a new Congress, hoping we get one, to tidy up.

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Where do you stand on God:

This is the challenge posed by the New Atheists. We are called upon, we lax agnostics, we noncommittal nonbelievers, we vague deists who would be embarrassed to defend antique absurdities like the Virgin Birth or the notion that Mary rose into heaven without dying, or any other blatant myth; we are called out, we fence-sitters, and told to help exorcise this debilitating curse: the curse of faith.

The New Atheists will not let us off the hook simply because we are not doctrinaire believers. They condemn not just belief in God but respect for belief in God. Religion is not only wrong; it's evil. Now that the battle has been joined, there's no excuse for shirking.

Warning: this is seven pages long. Well worth reading, however.

So you say you want a revolution?

How Bush Wrecked the Army

The generals' revolt has spread inside the Pentagon, and the point of the spear is one of Donald Rumsfeld's most favored officers, Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff.

The trumpet sounded last month, when Schoomaker refused to give Rumsfeld a detailed Army budget proposal for fiscal year 2008. The Air Force and Navy met the Aug. 15 deadline for submitting their program requests. But Schoomaker—in an unprecedented move—said he preferred not to.

Rumsfeld had limited the Army's budget for 2008 to $114 billion. Schoomaker told him that the sum wasn't enough to maintain the Army's present commitments. Simply to repair the tanks, radios, and other equipment damaged in Afghanistan and Iraq, he would need at least another $17 billion. If he didn't get it, he said, there was no point drawing up a budget at all.

Bush and Torture

The pressure George Bush has exerted the last several weeks to obtain a law from Congress validating the decisions he has taken in the name of his "war against terror" is about to bear fruit. The Republican senators who resisted the White House assert that they have imposed a compromise on it that respects human rights. The truth is that this apparent victory hides a capitulation on an essential point: the president of the United States sees recognized the right to authorize the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) to employ methods of interrogation that respect neither American legislation nor international law as codified by the Geneva Conventions. Clearly stated, the agency will be able to resort to torture, as it very probably has already for four or five years in the secret detention sites situated outside the United States.

Even the French know McCain's assurances are connerie.

Newsweek is news-worthy next week for a couple of reasons:

Losing Afghanistan: The Rise of Jihadistan:

Editor's Note: Newsweek has scrubbed the cover of the United States edition for October 2, 2006. The cover of international editions, aimed at Europe, and other world regions has maintained the original title of the story, "LOSING AFGHANISTAN." The new cover for the United States edition features photographer Annie Leibovitz and is titled "My Life in Pictures." We offer the European edition cover and story here. -vh/TO

Seriously? Does no one in the Journalistic community have any balls? Well, other than Mr. Olbermann? Read on:

In a parched clearing a few hundred yards on, more than 100 Taliban fighters ranging in age from teenagers to a grandfatherly 55-year-old have assembled to meet their provincial commander, Muhammad Sabir. An imposing man with a long, bushy beard, wearing a brown and green turban and a beige shawl over his shoulders, Sabir inspects his troops, all of them armed with AKs and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. He claims to have some 900 fighters, and says the military and psychological tide is turning in their favor. "One year ago we couldn't have had such a meeting at midnight," says Sabir, who is in his mid-40s and looks forward to living out his life as an anti-American jihadist. "Now we gather in broad daylight. The people know we are returning to power."

Not long after NEWSWEEK's visit, US and Afghan National Army forces launched a major attack to dislodge the Taliban from Ghazni and four neighboring provinces. But when NEWSWEEK returned in mid-September, Sabir's fighters were back, performing their afternoon prayers. It is an all too familiar story. Ridge by ridge and valley by valley, the religious zealots who harbored Osama bin Laden before 9/11 - and who suffered devastating losses in the US invasion that began five years ago next week - are surging back into the country's center. In the countryside over the past year Taliban guerrillas have filled a power vacuum that had been created by the relatively light NATO and US military footprint of some 40,000 soldiers, and by the weakness of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration.

Mission Accomplished!

The United States worsened an already horrifying situation by invading and then abandoning Afghanistan. We are unable to fix the damage we caused and Afghanistan is headed towards being a "lost cause" because of us.

Not long ago, the Bush administration was fond of pointing to Afghanistan as a model of transformation. That mountainous landlocked country, we were told, was being converted from a "failed state" - Al Qaeda's base for the worst ever attacks on US continental soil - into a functioning, responsible member of the international community. In speech after speech, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior US officials ticked off the happy stats: the Taliban and Al Qaeda had been routed, democratic presidential and parliamentary elections had been held, more than 3 million refugees had returned and 1.75 million girls were attending school.

Heck of a job Rummie.

The Taliban doesn't always share Al Qaeda's goals or tactics, although some units have taken up suicide bombing. But a guerrilla calling himself Commander Hemat, a former anti-Soviet mujahedin fighter who now works closely with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, says foreign Arabs are being welcomed again. "Now the money is flowing again because the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan are producing results," he told NEWSWEEK. Zabibullah, a Taliban operative who has proved reliable in the past, says the Qaeda operatives "feel more secure and can concentrate on their own business other than just surviving."

Why might that be? Because of our other disastrous foreign policy choices in the rest of the Middle East?

Does no one in the US government recognize that, as distasteful, as heinous as the Taliban and Al Qaeda and others are, they are fighting on their own soil, for their own version of governance? Did they learn nothing from Vietnam? From the Soviet's attempt to deal with Afghanistan? This will not end any time soon. They are fighting for their own survival, whatever that survival entails for them. We should never have entered Afghanistan in the first place. I said that in October of 2002 and I'm saying it now: A multinational police force should have been sent to find bin Laden - not the US or it's alllies' Armies. Carpet bombing these people back to the stone age isn't the answer. They will retreat to the hills and wait everyone out:

And while Ahmad's unit is now regrouping to the east, at least 35 Taliban have stashed their weapons and stayed in the village posing as farmers. They will lay ambushes and plant IEDs to harass Afghan and US troops, Ahmad says, and the larger Taliban force will return when it's safe. He shrugs off the setback, saying it's only temporary. "We never expected the success we've had," says Ahmad. Nor, five years ago, did anyone else.

This jihad against themselves and the West is their Revolutionary War. It began in Iran in 1979 with the overthrow of the Shah. It won't end until they exhaust themselves or win their objectives. The battle field isn't confined to just their own counties, towns and villages, but the whole world. It's no solution, but maybe we should just leave them alone and allow them to destroy each other or figure out which way to go. By illegally invading Iraq, by using brute force to find a terrorist in Afghanistan, we have made bad situations so much worse. We need to back away and allow these people to find their own way. And sort out our own "houses" before telling others how to fix theirs.

It's not a good solution. I'm not sure there is one. But I do know that what we're doing isn't working, so isn't it time to change tactics? We've gone overboard on the militaristic answers - perhaps it's time to retreat. We haven't the fiscal or human resources to deal with the problems we have exasperbated. Perhaps it's time to call in the United Nations and ask them to work with the Arab League to fix this nightmare.

Before it's too late.

That's all folks - for today, anyway

The Israeli-Lebanon truce is holding. I'm still betting some fool will do something stupid to end it. Mr. Ahmadinejad isn't helping keep things peaceful: Ahmadinejad gives 'victory speech' before masses

"The problem in Lebanon did not end with the obtaining of a ceasefire. A holding of account with Israel must be held and with those who stood at its side. The stance of America and Israel harmed the image of the Security Council. The two don't have the right to be members of the Security Council," said the Iranian president. He added that "the nations of the area demand a Middle East clean from the American-British hegemony."

Syrian President Bashar doesn't want to be left out, so he's cheering on Hezbollah as well. As I said yesterday, this isn't much of victory for anyone - but try telling that to Mssrs. Ahmadinejad and Bashar, as well as Bush and Olmert.

If everyone claims victory, does that mean no one wins?

The end of August and beginning of September should be interesting.


I've read Seymour Hersh's take on the Israeli attack on Lebanon. For the most part, it makes sense, and some points I thought of in July, especially about this being a dress-rehersal for an Iran invasion. And since Bush thinks Israel won... you gotta wonder what these fools are going to do next.

"The Israeli plan, according to the former senior intelligence official, was “the mirror image of what the United States has been planning for Iran.” (The initial U.S. Air Force proposals for an air attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity, which included the option of intense bombing of civilian infrastructure targets inside Iran, have been resisted by the top leadership of the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, according to current and former officials. They argue that the Air Force plan will not work and will inevitably lead, as in the Israeli war with Hezbollah, to the insertion of troops on the ground.)"

“There is no way that Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this,” he said. “When the smoke clears, they’ll say it was a success, and they’ll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran.”

Read the article and draw your own conclusions.



How I never quite fell for South Africa

"After almost four years in Johannesburg, the time has come to move on, and I do so with a sense of detachment. This never really became home. Partly it was running to the airport every other week for overseas trips; partly it was being white and European; but mainly it was because South Africa was such a fraught place to live. The anxiety about crime, the crunching on racial eggshells, the juxtaposition of first-world materialism with third-world squalor - it all added up."

Excellent article by Rory Carroll of the "Guardian Unlimited".