Let’s face it…my best writing ends up scattered across the net, in comments, message boards, skanky cyber-bathroom walls (my best limericks are the stuff of #2s miles away from home, so says my $30/hr life coach Murma…I know that sounds unnecessary, but the guy’s also a whiz at forging documents)…so here’s a recent one.
The Trader’s Den Politics Fourum - “What Will Iraq Become?”
deadissue: I think this depends mostly on whether or not Muhammad descends from the heavens and says once and for all whether his son or nephew or whoever should have been his heir…
Sunni and Shiites have disagreed on this point forever. Willing to blow each other up. That’s the deal in Iraq…widespread ignorance, futility and prayer.
I predict a regional war that we’ll hear little about once our troops are out. At that point our government will pick a side they like the most and sell them twice as many weapons as we sell the other side.
A hundred years from now, we’ll be rich off of the guns, and they’ll still be debating with hand grenades over which descendant of Muhammad is going to float down from the sky one day.
If you think I’m joking, just look it up. It’s true.
Starman714 points out, “…but we’re leaving out the pissed-off-at-the-West factions and the fact that they are bound to strike our soil again for this…”
deadissue: Most of whom don’t know what an electron is, let alone enough to launch operations across the globe against us. Let’s not give these people too much credit. They were burning down their own neighborhoods over a cartoon a few weeks ago.
9/11 was a perfect storm if you will. A beurocracy caught naping, ignoring clue after clue, until finally a bucket of ice water gets thrown on it. Since then, Osama has provided hope to the same nitwits who were going to believe whatever they were told anyway, and a slice of the dirt poor who had nothing better to do until they saw a foreign tank driven by a white guy roll down their street.
I think they got lucky, very lucky.
The threat of terrorism is usefull to certain people, for the same reason it’s usefull to Osama. Get’s the people around you on board with just about anything you’ve got to say. Personally, I think a lot of people living in the Middle East are silly.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 10:16 AM MDT
37 Comments »
Senator Wyden is the hero this week, as my ambivilent-streak concerning the Democrats may be coming to an end quite soon. The profits have been obscene for oil companies for a while already now, and in spite of this, Republicans continue to give them billions in “tax relief” to supposedly encourage exploration. Reverse Robin Hood on steroids and methamphetamine, this arrangement is the kind of thing ’small government’ conservatives would be talking about if Republicans weren’t in power.
Here’s a paragraph I lifted off of ‘Preemptive Karma’
Senator Wyden is currently holding the floor in filibuster, in order to gain a vote on his amendment to eliminate royalty relief (ie subsidies) for oil companies whenever the price of a barrel exceeds $50 $55. Not only the GOP leadership, but certain corporate-beholden Democrats do not relish such a vote. Good on Wyden for making the stand now, as the oil companies release their 1Q profit statements and nearly everyone in the country sees a ‘3′ at the front of the price of gas in their area.
Democrats are slowly realizing strengths they never knew they had.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 7:08 PM MDT
21 Comments »
This is going to cause a lot of babbling when it comes out. Expert analysts on the TV hashing it out for days. As if…what? We censor it? On Malacay in Kansas’s behalf?
We pass a law, and anything Malacay finds offensive or insulting is immediately shut down.
It’s that simple of a thing…and it’s not like a hundred years from now the Bible will be gone, replaced with a fiction novel.
Then again, that’s how we ended up with Mormans…
Posted by Al Swearengen as Religion, Words at 11:35 PM MDT
12 Comments »
Source - MSNBC
McCarthy has contributed a total of $7,000 to Democratic political causes over her lifetime, including $2,000 to the Kerry 2004 presidential campaign. Her husband is a landscaper, and they live in Bethesda, Md.
This, in and of itself, is certainly grounds for demotion, perhaps even mega-demotion, but to get shitcaned for being a Democrat, well…that’s probably not fair.
“A CIA officer has acknowledged having unauthorized discussions with the media, in which the officer knowingly and willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information. I terminated that officer’s employment with the CIA,” Goss said.
OK, now it makes sense. Unless you consider this:
Fired CIA officer Mary McCarthy has “categorically” denied to NBC News through her lawyer that she leaked classified information. In addition, McCarthy’s attorney tells NBC News that she did not have access to the information she is accused of leaking. The CIA has said that the officer — whom the agency wouldn’t identify — had “confessed” to leaking.
A defense source tells NBC News that while McCarthy may have failed her polygraph on the issue of having unauthorized contacts with reporters, she did not fail the question about leaking information on the secret prison system.
FINE…she didn’t fail the polygraph test on the question of whether she leaked the information. Take that and run with it if you want to, but she DOES know the reporter, AND she donated money to Democrats! I say, polygraph schmolygraph - this is America, and the day a government agency can’t fire someone for voting a certain way, it’s all over for us I’m afraid. I mean, do you want the guy working next to you believing something different than you when it comes to politics or religion? To hell with that mess! We have terrorist hethons who are perhaps days away from breaking into my house and raping every one of us hour after hour until we finally fall in love with Allah, actually MEAN IT, which is vital considering how skillfull they are at knowing whether or not someone’s lying when they say it.
It’s the Mike Tyson “I’m gonna fuck you till you love me” method, and I’m afraid that if we don’t start getting as good at this as the terrorists already are, it’ll only be a matter of time before we’re all booze-free, eating sand burgers…so with that in mind, how about we don’t just fire every Democrat working for the government, but for the sake of national security, let’s chop off their heads as well. You video tape Mary McCarthy being decapitated, run it on the news, uncensored on the internet, and I guarantee all this talk about what the President did or didn’t do will go away pretty damned quick!
Who’s with me? I’ve got an axe, chainsaw and hodgepodge collection of kitchen knives here in the house. Can someone donate a machette?
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 11:55 PM MDT
11 Comments »
On Cheney and Rumsfeld orders, US outsourcing intelligence tasks to terrorists in Iraq
The Pentagon is bypassing official US intelligence channels and turning to a dangerous and unruly cast of characters in order to create strife in Iran in preparation for any possible attack, former and current intelligence officials say.
One of the operational assets being used by the Defense Department is a right-wing terrorist organization known as Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK), which is being “run” in two southern regional areas of Iran. They are Baluchistan, a Sunni stronghold, and Khuzestan, a Shia region where a series of recent attacks has left many dead and hundreds injured in the last three months.
One former counterintelligence official, who wished to remain anonymous due to the sensitivity of the information, describes the Pentagon as pushing MEK shortly after the invasion of Iraq in 2003. The drive to use the insurgent group was said to have been advanced by the Pentagon under the influence of the Vice President’s office and opposed by the State Department, National Security Council and then-National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 6:13 PM MDT
5 Comments »
My boys are 9.5 months old as of today, so I arranged for them to get their union cards yesterday, took them down into the coal pits for an up close look at where daddy goes for 12 hours every day but Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 8:25 AM MDT
6 Comments »
Here’s what the President had to say about the resignation of his press secretary:
“One of these days, he and I will be rocking in chairs in Texas talking about the good old days of his time as the Press Secretary, and I can assure you, I will feel the same way then that I feel now that I can say to Scott: job well done.”
I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation. Of course, you know that this is an ongoing investigation. I think the President has been clear that the administration is not going to comment on this because the investigation is ongoing.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 9:08 PM MDT
10 Comments »
A. Scalia: “…proudest thing I have done on the bench…”
HARTFORD, Conn. — Conservative U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia had some advice Wednesday for those who questioned his impartiality after he refused to recuse himself from a case involving his hunting buddy, Vice President Dick Cheney. “For Pete’s sake, if you can’t trust your Supreme Court justice more than that, get a life,” Scalia said.
Scalia, addressing an audience at the University of Connecticut’s law school on Wednesday, said recusing himself from the 2004 case _ which focused on an energy task force that Cheney led _ would only have given fuel to newspaper editorial writers and other detractors who have said he is too close to the vice president. “I think the proudest thing I have done on the bench is not allowed myself to be chased off that case,” Scalia said.
B. The War on Information!
On March 28, using information drawn from the IRS’s Annual Report (Data Book), TRAC posted a report stating that only 30 of the nation’s 180,000 millionaires were subject to face-to-face audits in FY 2005. (See initial report.) Within hours of the posting, the agency informed TRAC that the IRS’ official numbers were not correct. Although the IRS promised to promptly provide TRAC with new numbers and a full explanation of how it came to publish incorrect information, this accounting has not yet occurred. (In fact, the audit counts about the super rich which the IRS claims are erroneous are still posted on its web site.)
On April 4, a federal district judge in Seattle ordered the IRS to obey a 1976 court order and provide Susan Long, the co-director of TRAC and a professor at Whitman School of Management at Syracuse University, statistical information about it operations by April 17. As of April 12 no data has been produced.
On April 10, TRAC was informed by Albert D. Adams, IRS Chief of Disclosure in Washington, that the agency flatly refused to provide even sample copies of statistical reports routinely prepared by the Enforcement Revenue Information System (ERIS). This is the data system the IRS had earlier recommended would provide us with the statistics on the final results of audits we were seeking. The agency claimed a number of exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act allowed it to withhold the information. Although TRAC did not ask for any individual tax return information, Adams cited personal privacy as a reason the statistics would be withheld. The other reason was to protect outside contractor “trade secrets.” (LINK)
C. LA Times Story: U.S. Military Secrets for Sale at Afghan Bazaar
Some Highlights - BAGRAM, Afghanistan — No more than 200 yards from the main gate of the sprawling U.S. base here, stolen computer drives containing classified military assessments of enemy targets, names of corrupt Afghan officials and descriptions of American defenses are on sale in the local bazaar. A reporter recently obtained several drives at the bazaar that contained documents marked “Secret.” The contents included documents that were potentially embarrassing to Pakistan, a U.S. ally, presentations that named suspected militants targeted for “kill or capture” and discussions of U.S. efforts to “remove” or “marginalize” Afghan government officials whom the military considered “problem makers.”
…The drives also included deployment rosters and other documents that identified nearly 700 U.S. service members and their Social Security numbers, information that identity thieves could use to open credit card accounts in soldiers’ names.
…One of the men on the military’s removal list, Sher Mohammed Akhundzada, was replaced in December as governor of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan. After removing him from the governor’s office, Karzai appointed Akhundzada to Afghanistan’s Senate. The U.S. military believed the governor, who was caught with almost 20,000 pounds of opium in his office last summer, to be a heroin trafficker.
…One of the terrorism groups is identified by the single name “Zawahiri,” apparently a reference to Ayman Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s deputy and chief strategist in Al Qaeda. The document said his attacks had been launched from a region south of Miram Shah, administrative capital of Pakistan’s unruly North Waziristan tribal region. In January, a CIA missile strike targeted Zawahiri in a village more than 100 miles to the northeast, but he was not among the 18 killed, who included women and children.
…An August 2004 computer slide presentation marked “Secret” outlined “obstacles to success” along the border and accused Pakistan of making “false and inaccurate reports of border incidents.” It also complained of political and military inertia in Pakistan…A special operations task force map highlighting militants’ infiltration routes from Pakistan in early 2005 included this comment from a U.S. military commander: “Pakistani border forces [should] cease assisting cross border insurgent activities.”
(friends of ours…we give them missiles)
D. Chuck Hagel - 4/13/06
“I think to further comment on it would be complete speculation, but I would say that a military strike against Iran, a military option, is not a viable, feasible, responsible option,” he added. …
“I believe a political settlement will be the answer. Not a military settlement. All these issues will require a political settlement.”
Posted by Al Swearengen as Military at 1:10 AM MDT
11 Comments »
Hope everyone has a great weekend. Blog’s on hiatus until Monday…new posts at least.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 8:23 PM MDT
2 Comments »
Fungal Keratitis - Take a peek at this mess
I had this happen to me more times than I can even remember. Blasting through soft contact lenses in half the time they’d normally last, while using the enzyme tablets to clean them almost religiously. In 2002 I was driving to work and the headache I woke up with got more intense every minute of the drive. Eventually I had to pull over because of the pain. In my left eye (if I remember correctly, don’t have the medical records handy), there was this dark red dot in the white part to the outside with blood colored tentacles going every which way from it. Diagnosed as a corneal ulcer, I worked that week with sunglasses on indoors, goop on that eye, and a headache that would only get better when I closed my eyes indoors (if the sun was out, it still kicked my ass whether my eyes were open or closed).
So from that point on, if I could go without contacts for a part of the day, I’d hold off on putting them in. Everywhere I went, in my pocket was another set in solution. After having what I had, you don’t ever want to go through it again. Because until your sight is threatened, a person doesn’t normally ponder life without it all that often. Kind of like pushing someone’s wheelchair, helping them to do things you usually just take for granted. A sense of fear mixed with elation, knowing you’re not there yet, but also that the clock could very well be ticking. So you look extra hard both ways before crossing the street from then on.
The worst stretch came just before we moved to the new house. Still living in Braintree, about a month or two before the twins are born, for at least 45 days my eyes would look like those pictures in the link above. Van Helsing can vouch for that. Again with the headaches, but not as severe this time. Instead it was an unbearable stinging until I got the contact out, and for a couple days afterwards I’d look like the living dead, people telling me it looked like my eyes were going to fall out or explode at any minute. A truly wonderful ailment to experience without health insurance, everyone became convinced that it was the actual lenses causing me the problem. I figured as much and haven’t worn them a single day since my sons were born.
Now comes a story about people using the saline solution I always did, and widespread breakouts of those insanely gross pictures at the top of this post. Go figure. I can finally close the case on that mystery.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 2:01 PM MDT
1 Comment »
Outsourcing saves less than claimed
(Reuters) - Outsourcing of information technology and business services delivers average cost savings of 15 percent, a survey found on Thursday, disproving market claims that outsourcing can reduce costs by over 60 percent.
After professional fees, severance pay and governance costs, savings range between 10 percent and 39 percent, with the average level at 15 percent when contracts are first let, according to outsourcing advisory firm TPI.
“This research proves that the promise of massive operational savings is unrealistic when you take into account the costs of procurement and ongoing contract management,” Duncan Aitchison, TPI’s managing director, said in a statement.
“In our experience, outsourcing arrangements which focus solely on delivering huge savings often fail to meet client expectations,” he added.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 11:57 AM MDT
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It occurs to me that not only haven’t I been writing and posting often enough, but the standard topics I do feel compelled to write about don’t really matter to me at all. Do I bleed from the heart whenever greed takes an innocent man, bends him over and fucks him up the ass? Of course, but through the use of blood thinners and an internal monitor, the effects have been rendered harmless. At least that’s what the information booklet says. Come to think of it, since I had the procedure done, the clinic has been relocated. But for that I’ve got beer along with an adamant belief that all people in this world are inherently good. Call me clueless…I prefer to think of it as something else, something smart and positive.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 7:49 PM MDT
18 Comments »
I’m not sure who’d be interested, but I recently finished an enormous download (11.7GB) of Phil Lesh and Friends - Warren Haynes, Jimmy Herring, John Molo, Rob Barraco - Beacon Theater, NYC - 10/9/00
They open with Imagine…as it would have been John Lennon’s 60th…the first of six from the Beacon on this run. Probably the best camera work I’ve ever seen on a bootleg video. I’ll send this to any deadissue reader for free, 3 DVDs. Email me at caustin34@yahoo.com.
On the constant lookout for karma, I’ll throw in a show off of this list w/ the Beacon show:
http://db.etree.org/www.deadissue.com
All I ask is that if one day one of my sons runs in a campaign you hold a vote in, that you’ll cast it for either Max or Sam, perhaps another child by the name of…Pedro, Manny, Curt, David, Venus, Amarillo, Shirley, Abigail, Jerry, Muhammad, Brady, Tedy, Antoine…it’s the right thing, in such obvious ways, not only for America, but whoever else is over when this is viewed.
I’m not kidding. It’s free, and it WILL cure all of society’s ills…once science is able to turn it into a vaccine.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 1:55 AM MDT
7 Comments »
If the end result is a mess like this, then someone leaked inappropriately. Perhaps Libby was put out on a raft at the end of the boat, tied to a long rope, a sacrifice to the gods. Somehow believing this man would turn into Jack Ruby for their sake, just as Abramoff and Cunningham begin long sentences… you might as well write up all this to the true differences between organized crime and national politics over time, there aren’t nearly as many murdered rats and there’s practically no one involved from top to bottom in the DC machine, not wearing a military uniform, who won’t cop to their crime in five seconds once the whiff of a possible deal enters the interview room.
Let’s not tiptoe around this thing… these are not the kind of men best suited for prison life. Not to say that Libby is going to be bunked with a horny 300 pound Samoan, but his days of feeling proud of himself are most likely over. Instead of the cyborg programing Tom Delay is operating on, most of these guys have absolutely no stomach for that aspect of the public life. Delay on the other hand, ex-aides insist that his body actually extracts nutrition from public criticism, showing not only in his mood and demeanor but during his most combative periods in Congress, his cholesterol level would drop.
Of course, I’ve heard a lot of this second hand, and for five days it’s been a nonstop frenzy of beepers, cell phones, reporters all the way from Moscow to Miami calling with the same blathering idiot tone, a fax machine that runs out of paper a mere 4.5 hours after the shit storm first descended on all the poor schmuck reporters who had planed on having fun hundreds of miles away this weekend. Instead of that, it’s a frantic explaination of why the trip is suddenly over, resulting in 34 threats of divorce already, hundreds of speeding tickets, and bouts of deep and serious depression having descended on the Capitol, only to find tumbleweeds, tears and two double cheeseburgers for a buck at McDonalds.
And they’re not the only ones hurting, you can be sure of that! As a couple people have mentioned to me the reality that once in jail, when a minister “saves” them again, redeems them, it’s only half as strong as the first time… and some of these crooks have diped their bucket in that well once too often already for it to even matter. And this brings me to my closing point, the most important thing to remember in all of this, and that’s to slow down with accepting Christ as your personal savior when you’re young, because you never know when you’ll need that juice in the future. A society of overindulgence we’ve become, indeed… what could be the only thing worse than that is if we become habitual liars at the same time. No courpses, but in terms of blatant ignorance and total dishonesty, this caper puts us right around ‘China or Russia on a good day’.
Posted by Al Swearengen as Words at 4:45 AM MDT
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