Iraq's Cincinnatus Option

http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/Analysis_Iraqs_Cincinnatus_option/20070227-081023-3620r/

Sticky situation for squirrel

Five Reasons To Deny 911 Was An Inside Job

http://rense.com/general75/five.htm

VIDEO: BBC WAS HALF AN HOUR TOO EARLY REPORTING ON WTC7 COLLAPSE

Smoking gun! Inside job confirmed.

'Secretive' Christian conservative club 'dismayed at the absence of a champion to carry their banner in the next election'

Put me down as more "mayed" than "dismayed" about this development.

Go team!

1 In 3 Boys Heavy Porn Users, Study ShowsStudy Shows Rural Children Access Porn More Often

http://www.local6.com/family/11101639/detail.html

What is a "heavy" porn user. Are the boys overweight or does "heavy porn" mean they like to watch the "plumpers"?

My last snide comment for this entry is:

"1 in 3 boys admit heavy porn use and 2 in 3 are lying."

Peace, brother

I received this image via an anti-Hillary email last night. I think they look cool. It makes me wish I was back in 1972. Not much, though. I don't want to have to go through adolescence again.

Still a very timely article

How Neoconservatives Conquered Washington – and Launched a War

The "God" that Serves Elite Jews

The Kids are Alright… (albeit not in the U.S. and G.B.)

Judge frees jailed Chippendales dancers with charges yet to be filed

Councilwoman Jones might have what it takes to be an exotic dancer herself!

The Role of the Psychopath

http://ponerology.blogspot.com/2005/12/role-of-psychopath-in-generation-of.html

We Can Work It Out

America's View of Republicans Crumbles in Iraq

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0214-25.htm

The Russians Are Coming

http://www.wakeupfromyourslumber.com/node/641

Fade to black

Larger reproduction

Speech at the 43rd Munich Conference on Security Policy

http://www.securityconference.de/konferenzen/rede.php?menu_2007=&menu_konferenzen=&sprache=en&id=179

Leaving Houston - January 20, 2007

This guy will regret this!

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C., January 9, 2007: “The Bush gang is now going into a bunker mode. They have a very irate public and Congress against them, threats of Congressional retaliation against all Republicans, very real threats of investigations into massive thefts of money (unbelievable what they have stolen!), gross stupidity, vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with them, and a determination to proceed with their MidEast conquest policy come what may.

One of the worst offenders in all of this is the American media. They have known from the beginning about various nasty matters and have coyly kept it all quiet. It was known that the gay prostitute;,Gannon/Guckert was roaming loose in the White House all night for fourteen different nights but no comment from the press. Rumors floating around D.C. was that Bush was having an affair with Gannon but it never, ever, got into the press.

There were a dozen pictures of Abramoff with Bush in the White House but not one paper or television station ever printed them (although they were readily available,) refusal to even hint at faked casualty figures, muted silence about the gross activities of the sluttish Bush daughters and many, many more subjects.

The media has been pandering to Bush and his corporate supporters until just recently and no doubt we will now see a reversal and Bush will be savagely attacked.

And why?

Because, in part, Israel wants Bush to fight their wars for them in the MidEast; to attack Iraq (which happened) and then to flatten Iran which they view as a major threat to them (not to us).

Israeli diplomatic agencies and domestic Jewish support groups are daily importuning Bush and Cheney to attack Iran and prevent Iran from possibly attacking them.

Israel doesn’t care if 10,000 GIs get iced as long as we do the bombing for them. Personally, I think we ought to cut them loose, get out of Iraq, forget about Bush’s nut plans and let Israel take care of itself.

They and they alone have dragged, tricked and pushed us into the war and a moronic pro-Israel Bush has gone right along with them.

And for starters we can round up the neocons like Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle and Kristol and ship them to Israel in a crate. If you have a rotten tooth that is infecting your whole body, you don’t trim your toenails, do you?”

Business Plot

Albuquerque tops fittest city list

Woodpecker in Pineywoods

R.I.P. Anna Nicole Smith (1967 - 2007)

How the US sent $12bn in cash to Iraq. And watched it vanish

Iran says to target U.S. interests if attacked

This is the actual leader of Iran, not Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This old white man (Persians are as white, if not whiter, than I am) controls the military and has never made any statements about "wiping Israel off the map" (as MA's rhetoric was mistranslated last year).

I expect Dumbya to attack Iran. I also expect that this will mark the end of the United States as a "First World" nation, regardless of who "wins" (in reality, no one will).

Generator eats garbage, poops energy

How to awaken

Frenzy in France Over "Iranian Threat"

http://www.counterpunch.org/johnstone02062007.html

Murdoch Confesses To Propaganda On Iraq

Doggie style

Where do I begin?

Do it

Quotes of the Day

"The superior man, when resting in safety, does not forget that danger may come.
When in a state of security he does not forget the possibility of ruin.
When all is orderly, he does not forget that disorder may come.
Thus his person is not endangered, and his States and all their clans are preserved."
- Confucius (551 BC - 479 BC)

America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to change the system from within, yet too early to shoot the bastards.
- Claire Wolfe

Bachelor: A guy who is footloose and fiancee-free.
- I don't know, but I'll take credit for this one.

Surge won't help, say GIs in Ira

By TOM LASSETER
McClatchy Newspapers

BAGHDAD - Army 1st Lt. Antonio Hardy took a slow look around the east Baghdad neighborhood that he and his men were patrolling. He grimaced at the sound of gunshots in the distance. A machine gunner on top of a Humvee scanned the rooftops for snipers. Some of Hardy's men wondered aloud whether they would get hit by a roadside bomb on the way back to their base.

"To be honest, it's going to be like this for a long time to come no matter what we do," said Hardy, 25, of Atlanta. "I think some people in America don't want to know about all this violence, about all the killings. The people back home are shielded from it; they get it sugar-coated."

While senior military officials and the Bush administration say the president's decision to send more American troops to pacify Baghdad will succeed, many of the soldiers who're already there say it's a lost cause.

"What is victory supposed to look like? Every time we turn around and go in a new area there's somebody new waiting to kill us," said Sgt. 1st Class Herbert Gill, 29, of Pulaski, Tenn., as his Humvee rumbled down a dark Baghdad highway one evening last week. "Sunnis and Shiites have been fighting for thousands of years, and we're not going to change that overnight."

"Once more raids start happening, they'll [insurgents] melt away," said Gill, who serves with the 1st Infantry Division in east Baghdad. "And then two or three months later, when we leave and say it was a success, they'll come back."

Violence out of control

Soldiers interviewed across east Baghdad, home to more than half the city's 8 million people, said the violence is so out of control that while a surge of 21,500 more American troops may momentarily suppress it, the notion that U.S. forces can bring lasting security to Iraq is misguided.

Hardy and his men of the 2nd Brigade of the Army's 2nd Infantry Division, from Fort Carson, Colo., patrol an area southeast of Sadr City, the stronghold of radical anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

A map in Hardy's company headquarters charts at least 50 roadside bombs since late October, and the lieutenant recently watched in horror as the blast from one killed his Humvee's driver and wounded two other soldiers in a spray of blood and shrapnel.

Hardy and his comrades must contend not only with an escalating civil war between Iraq's Sunni and Shiite Muslims but also with insurgents on both sides who target U.S. forces.

"We can go get into a firefight and empty out ammo, but it doesn't accomplish much," said Pvt. 1st Class Zach Clouser, 19, of York, Pa. "This isn't our war -- we're just in the middle."

Pessimism and optimism

Almost every foot soldier interviewed during a week of patrols on the streets and alleys of east Baghdad said Bush's plan will halt the bloodshed only temporarily. The soldiers cited a variety of reasons, including incompetence or corruption among Iraqi troops, the complexities of Iraq's sectarian violence and lack of Iraqi public support, a cornerstone of counterinsurgency warfare.

"They can keep sending more and more troops over here, but until the people here start working with us, it's not going to change," said Sgt. Chance Oswalt, 22, of Tulsa.

Bush's initiative calls for American soldiers in Baghdad to take positions in outposts throughout the capital, paired up with Iraqi police and soldiers. Few of the U.S. soldiers interviewed, however, said Iraqi forces can operate effectively without American help.

Their officers were more optimistic.

If there's enough progress during the next four to six months, "we can look at doing provincial Iraqi control, and we can move U.S. forces to the edge of the city," said Lt. Col. Dean Dunham, the deputy commander of the 2nd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade, which oversees most of east Baghdad.

Maj. Christopher Wendland, a senior staff officer for Dunham's brigade, said there's a good chance that by late 2007 American troops will have handed over most of Baghdad to Iraqi troops.

"I'm actually really positive," said Wendland, 35, of Chicago. "We have an Iraqi army that's actually capable of maintaining once we leave."

If the Iraqi army can control the violence, his thinking goes, economic and political progress will follow in the safest areas, accompanied by infrastructure improvement, then spread outward.

In counterinsurgency circles, that notion is commonly called the "inkblot" approach. It's been relatively successful in some isolated parts of Iraq, such as Tal Afar, on the Syrian border, but in most areas it's failed to halt the bloodshed for any length of time.

Wendland and Dunham said, however, that if the Iraqi forces in Baghdad falter, much of the city could fall to Sunni and Shiite insurgents.

"We have to have momentum ... or else it could all fall like a house of cards," Wendland said.

'Relentless and pointless'

Leaning against a pile of sandbags last week, 1st Lt. Tim Evers took a drag on a Marlboro. He said that while sending more troops sounded good, Sunni and Shiite fighters would only move out of Baghdad, fight elsewhere and wait until they can re-enter the capital.

Evers' men were part of the last U.S. effort to subdue Baghdad, Operation Forward Together, which included Iraqi and American soldiers. It lasted most of last summer and ended in failure.

"When we first got here it was, 'Let's put up schools, let's work on a power plant' -- but you can't do that without security, and security here is crap," said Evers, 26, of Stockton, Calif. "They keep trying different crap and it doesn't work. ... They're talking about the inkblot method, and doing that you secure a small area, but the rest is still bad."

The problem, many soldiers say, is that as long as most Iraqis oppose the presence of American troops, a trend that's only accelerated since the 2003 invasion, no amount of bullets or bodies will solve the problem.

That's a bitter truth for soldiers such as Oswalt on the streets of Baghdad.

Oswalt somberly named two men in his company who survived the battle of Fallujah in November 2004, the most intense urban combat since Vietnam, only to be killed in Baghdad late last year. One bled to death after he was shot by a sniper; the other was killed by a roadside bomb.

"All of our friends who have been killed by [roadside bombs] and snipers, it's like there's no justice for it -- it's just another body bag filled," he said.

"The guys who died just trying to stay alive and get home, they'll be forgotten. No one will remember their stories."

Riding on a patrol last week, Spc. Elmer Beere looked out of his Humvee window for any hint of wires leading to a roadside bomb.

"It's kind of relentless and pointless," said Beere, 22, of State College, Pa. "It'll be the same thing going on here no matter what we do."

"Bomb in the building, start clearing out"

The "Inside (the building) Job" confirmed by this audio from the NYC fireman.