Depends on who you ask.
According to nutjob Michelle Malkin, it’s liberal Bush-bashing bloggers and environmentalists.
According to Faux News, it’s Al Qaeda.
According to scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NOAA, it’s stronger than usual Santa Ana winds.
Who do you believe?
[...]In his eyes, if you don’t believe in Bush (and him), you deserve hell fire and damnation.
We just disagree on how we should function, what we should do, big government, small government. It doesn’t mean you hate America. I think there is a handful of people who hate America. [...]
I live in Murray, not Salt Lake City, so I don’t have a vote in the SLC mayoral race. Besides which, as I’ve said before, I find it irrelevant since the two final contenders are both professional politicians, a species I find somewhat repugnant.
But today my RSS feed provided me [...]
Bush and Cheney deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for preventing World War III by preemptively invading and susequently destroying a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 and resulted in death and injury to hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and a sectarian civil war with no end [...]
The missus and I finally got around to watching An Inconvenient Truth this past weekend and both found it compelling. At the same time, I think it’s a little too much about Al Gore, and I can see how that drives conservative Republicans mad with righteous indignation. I’ll get [...]
I was going to review this volume and its follow-on Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts at the same time, but I’ve fallen behind in my reading of the second one so instead I’ll do them separately.
Imperial Grunts is the first of a series of books in which [...]
In this NYTimes op-ed, a recently returned Army infantry officer addresses a theme I’ve noted several times (but not nearly as effectively as he does): there is a huge, ever-increasing gulf between the 1% of Americans who are directly affected by the war, and the remaining Americans who only [...]
I don’t know how effective it is as a strategy for educating voters on the issues, but it sure is funny as hell what the Florida Democratic Party is doing at this site:
Some choice excerpts:
Are you unsatisfied with the current field of Republican candidates?
Are you frustrated because [...]
They talk tough, but none of them serve. The don’t believe in government “handouts”, but they love nepotism. They are the new meritocratic GOP.
Greenwald doesn’t mention it, but they’re located here in Utah as well.
Read the whole thing.
[...]Oh my. Read this fascinating post at Accountability First and tell me you don’t conclude what I did: Mr. and Mrs. Oreo Cookies are so hot for vouchers, at least in large part, because they are associated with a home-grown company that markets private McSchools much the same way [...]
I was going to weigh in on this depressing piece by Lisa today at RangerAgainstWar in which she posits that a lot of the knucklehead decisions coming out of BushCo lately (pissing off China, pissing off Iran, pissing off Russia, pissing off North Korea, pissing off Turkey Armenia…you know, [...]
Still stung by the MSNBC/Newsweek report that claims an Army humvee full of soldiers surrendered their weapons and cowered on the ground at the feet of some Blackwater mercenaries after a minor traffic accident in Baghdad’s Green Zone, I have scoured the internets high and low trying to find [...]
It’s not often that I get to point out the incredible stupidity of someone other than myself. In this case, NRO’s new hotshot Mark Hemingway does all the work for me:
Last week I compared parents who allow their kids to be props in political debates to stage mothers. Instead [...]
The Deseret Spectacle discusses a Newsweek report alleging that a Blackwater crew, after their SUV collided with an American Army humvee in Baghdad’s Green Zone, disarmed the soldiers and forced them to lay on the ground at gunpoint while the vehicles were untangled…
Sorry, but color me highly skeptical. [...]
Cliff Lyon has his panties in a bunch over at OneUtah because (1) I called him on his post titled “American Scum Serving In Iraq”…without even reading the piece, it connotes Americans who serve there are scum, not just the statistically insignificant few who posted outrageously offensive videos on [...]
With the news that Al Gore has won the Nobel Peace Prize, we can expect the vast right-wing noise machine to let loose with a thunderous barrage of
This just proves that the Nobel Peace Prize doesn’t mean anything anymore.
Betcha ten to one Rich Lowry, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter [...]
I was preparing to call it a night when I came across this nugget from Mark Hemingway at NRO:
WHY DO YOU HATE CHILDREN SO MUCH?
(Sorry, but the all caps are his, not mine…guess he’s really, really angry about this.)
Here’s all you really need to read from it:
We here at [...]
For years I’ve made fun of Ann Coulter, even though I’ve never heard her talk, much less seen her on TV or in a video. On the other hand, I think I’ve seen all the other right-wing clowns, like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Ollie North, Bill O’Reilly et cetera ad [...]
What kind of sick, twisted, evil mind would build a fake MySpace page for not just Asa Coon, the mentally-ill school shooter from Cleveland, but also previously, for Seung-Hui Cho, the Virginia Tech mass murderer?
I don’t know, but I can tell you he’s a 19-year old delinquent who lives in [...]
Is this journalistic bias, is it journalistic incompetence, or does it even matter? We report, you decide.
Greenhouse pollution: Utah warming faster than anywhere else on Earth
Utah is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions per capita than the rest of the nation. The state is warming faster than anywhere else [...]
Courtesy fellow veteran Don at A Silent Cacophony comes this video nugget: Mitt Romney telling a poor guy with muscular dystrophy “I don’t care if you are dying a painful death…no medical marijuana for you.”
I wonder how principled the Mittster would be in this situation if, God forbid, [...]
David Brooks (who I’m not a fan of…he’s too much the BushCo apologist) has a fascinating piece in Friday’s NYTimes in which he rather adroitly dissects what is precisely wrong with the Republican party today. In short, it has morphed from the party of true conservatism, to the party [...]
As some may recall, on the first weekend of this college football season I boldly predicted that LSU would not end the season in the Top Ten (I also meekly suggested that Mississippi State had a chance to upset them…as Jeremy subsequently pointed out, rather cruelly, I’ve “been wrong [...]
Note: Originally written this morning, but due to technical difficulties (i.e., crappy internet access in Daggett County), it’s late being posted.
We’ll be pulling out today and returning to the city. It’s been a wild and crazy week here, but thankfully the jailbreak crisis is over (for now). I’ll be interested to [...]
OK, not really, I’m sitting at the bar of the family cabin in Washam, Wyoming but if I picked up a medium-size piece of gravel from the driveway and chunked it directly south, it would land in Manila, Utah…that’s how close we are.
I’m listening to KSL TV in the background [...]
Prison study abandoned?
After two dangerous criminals escaped from the Daggett County jail last week, the head of state Corrections told a reporter that such criminals are routinely sent to county jails because the main state prison in Salt Lake County is not large enough to hold all of them. [...]
Because George W. Bush thinks the public school system (via NCLB) is doing just hunky-dory:
Bush: No Child Left Behind Is Working
As a candidate, George W. Bush once asked, “Is our children learning?”
On Wednesday, he had an answer.
“Childrens do learn,” he said.
The setting was, yes, an education event where the [...]
Several Utah bloggers are wondering (and some are downright complaining) about why Warren Jeffs, erstwhile “prophet” of the FDLS was prosecuted for, and subsequently found guilty of, being an accomplice to rape, when the person who actually performed the rape (the so-called “husband”) was not first tried for, well, rape.
My [...]
Vick Fails Drug Test, Confined To Home
Stricter release conditions were imposed on Michael Vick on Wednesday after he tested positive for marijuana use on Sept. 13.
Judge Henry E. Hudson restricted Vick to his home every day from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. at the request of probation officer [...]
Remember, there’s one of those “fiscally conservative” BushCo Republicans running both the Department of Defense and the Department of the Navy.
Navy To Mask Coronado’s Swastika-Shaped Barracks
The U.S. Navy has decided to spend as much as $600,000 for landscaping and architectural modifications to obscure the fact that one its building [...]
For the best coverage of the two escaped convicts in Daggett County, read this story in today’s Trib.
Shorter version:
- The sheriff left one uniformed officer and one “control room employee” (probably the guy/gal supposed to be monitoring the CCTV system) to guard 120 inmates.
- Convicts jumped the fence around [...]
It’s counterintuitive, I know, but since the war in Iraq began in 2003 the Veterans Administration has actually reduced the number of veterans service representatives, the people who are responsible for reviewing and approving veterans’ claims, instead of increasing their ranks. Sounds outrageous? Seems absurd? Appears irrational? Feels funky? Smells [...]
As a part-time resident (I keep my boat at the marina there in the summer, and the wife’s family has a vacation cabin in Washam, which is a “suburb” of Manila albeit in Wyoming), I found this story troubling (especially since we drove right past that jail two hours before [...]
Bush: We Can’t Spend $22 Billion On America Because We Need $200 Billion For Iraq War
The Democratic leadership in Congress is set to pass a host of domestic funding bills that would exceed Bush’s request by $22 billion. The extra funding would help go towards veterans health care, infrastructure [...]
From his speech today at Columbia University:
On 9/11:
Why did this happen? What caused it? What conditions led to it? .. Who truly was involved? Who was really involved and put it all together?
Sounds like he’s been reading Cliff Lyon’s conspiracy theories at One Utah.
On executions of homosexuals in [...]
* “Chumming” is the practice of throwing ground-up, rotting pieces of meat into the water in order to attract sharks. I’m told that it also applies in certain parts of Wyoming where unscrupulous hunters use mounds of fresh corn to lure deer closer to said hunters.
Now it appears that we [...]
Over the weekend, while the wife and I were bouncing around in the wind and waves of Lake Flaming Gorge, Frank ratcheted up the debate over at Simple Utah Mormon Politics. As usual, the back and forth is compelling reading, but unfortunately both sides have now chosen to focus [...]
This stupid.
A new Congressional study finds that President Bush’s plans for the U.S. in Iraq over the next several decades will reach the trillions of dollars, on top of the approximately $567 billion the war has already cost.
Today in his press conference, a reporter asked President Bush whether [...]
Update: Now Frank’s got another good one going on. This time, Jeremy and CraigJ are having at it with Utah Taxpayer who is defending the Utah GOP argument that vouchers will save the state money (which is counterintuitive).
Even though I haven’t posted on the voucher issue since March ([...]
Senators Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel (both of whom are decorated Vietnam combat vets) will today introduce (for the second time) the Dwell Time Amendment, which would require that servicemembers receive at least the same amount of time at home base to rest and recover as the time spent on [...]
Link has been corrected.
Speaking of, ahem, “strange” Utah bloggers, check out this single-blog-post-autobiography by a real Utah original:
I especially like the part where he was chaptered out of the Army right after basic training. Contrary to what he thinks, that’s not usually the case for [...]
*GWAIT: Global War Against Islamic Terrorists (patent pending)
From retired Colonel Douglas MacGregor (one of those noxious Army pukes who makes Cliff and Dee ashamed of their country) comes this nugget:
Nations and their leaders tend to learn by experience, which means they often discover the right way forward only when [...]
Cliff Lyon is upset about a handful of disgusting videos from a handful of losers in Iraq who aren’t fit to wear the uniform of the United States Army. It upset me too, but Cliff goes on to infer that this statistically insignificant number of cretins must be representative [...]
I tried to post two YouTube videos from Chris Isaak today (both dedicated to JM Bell) but when I clicked on them, I got “Sorry but the owner of this video does not allow embedding…”. Well, hello, what other reason is there but to embed your stupid videos? Duh!
So, I [...]
Both of my regular readers must have surely noticed how unusually quiet I’ve been lately, especially given all the momentous events lately in the news. For instance,
a. The Salt Lake mayoral primary results: two professional politicians to choose from! Wow! Whoopee! (Yawn)
b. General Petraeus delivered his long-awaited, eagerly-anticipated and completely [...]
President Bush had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at the Sydney Opera House.
He’d only reached the third sentence of Friday’s speech to business leaders, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, when he committed his first gaffe.
“Thank you for being such a fine host [...]
At 6:35pm during a commercial break, you showed one advertisement for the University of Mississippi, and one for Louisiana State University.
Problem is, LSU was playing Mississippi State University (MSU).
For you Utahns, that’s like the difference between the U of U and Utah State University.
Think that’s important?
[...]That college football has already started tonight?
And did you know that they’ve moved the kickoff back to the 30-yard line? What’s up with that?
Update: Rutgers looks good (14-0 over Buffalo) and so does Louisville on their opening kickoff. But here is my first prediction: LSU is way overranked (#2). They [...]
Blog buddy J.M. Bell has thrown down the gauntlet with his recent “Afternoon’s Tunes” series…this time he offers up the delectable Brandie Carlisle, whose latest CD I shall immediately go out and purchase (yes, children, I said “purchase CD” not download MP3…one day you will understand). Very, very nice, [...]
Since The Deseret Spectacle appears to be on some kind of extended sabbatical, I feel no compunction about poaching on his territory (this time, anyway).
Sin Threatens Civilization
Abortion and birth control — the twin relics of hedonism — have brought Western civilization to the brink of disaster. [...]
Lawmaker Points Blame For Scandal At Colleague
The whole thing is funny, but this is really odd:
SL Trib quoting Governor Huntsman: “I’m not sure building floats for partisan purposes is something that public institutions should be in the practice of doing.”
DesNews quoting Governor Huntsman: “I’m not [...]
I’m not so sure about this.
The Army Business Transformation Strategic Framework
Business Transformation Mission Statement:Â To fundamentally change how the Army does business by applying proven business principles to the Army’s business processes in order to effectively and efficiently provide the necessary capabilities to the Combatant Commanders in [...]
Nightmarish political realities in Baghdad are prompting American officials to curb their vision for democracy in Iraq. Instead, the officials now say they are willing to settle for a government that functions and can bring security.
A workable democratic and sovereign government in Iraq was one of the Bush administration’s [...]
Apparently there is this right-wing “think tank” called the Family Security Foundation (sort of like the Sutherland Institute) which champions all those “family values” so near and dear to the conservative heart…you know, things like democracy sucks, and why don’t we just let George W. Bush be President-for-Life?
Conquering [...]
Lifted shamelessly verbatim from a site I highly recommend, Ranger Against War, I dedicate this to all the Iraq war supporters and Bush apologists in the Utah blogosphere. Please read this with an open mind, then think about it. Think really, really hard about it. Please.
Let’s pretend for the [...]
The other day you made the comment
…people who have been there have a much different outlook on the successes that are occurring.
Evidently, not everyone who’s been there agrees with you.
The War as We Saw It
To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its [...]
I was so heartened to see Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters on the TV news tonight say that the feds were going to crack down on drunk driving this Labor Day. Indeed, National Highway Traffic Safety Administrator Nicole R. Nason was heard to say:
Our message is simple. If you drive [...]
I don’t know if it’s the tinge of autumn in the air or the paucity of meaningful news to comment on (apart from the mine tragedy in Emery County, which I will refrain from addressing until the event is over), but a recent comment has just about got me interested [...]
Fatigue cripples US army in Iraq
Exhaustion and combat stress are besieging US troops in Iraq as they battle with a new type of warfare. Some even rely on Red Bull to get through the day. As desertions and absences increase, the military is struggling to [...]
Continuing with the Romney Brothers meme, here’s a pithy comment from Talking Points Memo:
Reading about Mitt’s claim that his five sons are serving the nation by driving the Winnebago through Iowa, I was put in mind of the once-famous Sulllivan Brothers, five Iowa boys who were all in the [...]
Mr. Hewitt doesn’t think it’s fair for us war critics to point out how strange it is that none of Mitt Romney’s strapping young sons think the GWAIT is important enough to put aside their budding careers as hedge fund managers and stockbrokers to, say, enlist to fight [...]
Utah exists in time warp
As I live in Louisiana — which is morally, spiritually and socially in the United States — Utah seems to exist in a mid-19th-century time warp. I was just wondering: The little bald gnome that we just heard launch a lengthy defense of the coal [...]
I realize the title is misleading because it does not really solve how to make short runways longer. It does, however, provide an additional level of safety when short runways contribute to aircraft overruns.
Commenter Carlos from Sao Paulo and I have been carrying on a discussion at the post [...]
I think it’s time to step back and take a break from blogging for awhile. Unlike the U.S. Congress and the Iraqi Parliament, though, I won’t take the entire month of August off. I expect to be back in a week or two.
In the meantime, feel free to browse the [...]
Simply put, this is the best account of the 1990’s wars in Bosnia and Chechnya you are likely to read. Many of the MSM reviewers compare this book to Michael Herr’s Dispatches, which many consider The Book about Vietnam. It is a gritty book, so be forewarned: [...]
Both of my faithful readers know I am a big fan of Bill Lind, who is so conservative that he makes Newt Gingrich look like a Nancy Pelosi liberal. As one of the original architects of the whole “revolution in military affairs” movement of the 70’s and 80’s, Lind has [...]
This morning I pointed out at A Silent Cacophony that the Drudge Report was erroneously reporting that a recent policy change regarding the frequency of memorials for Fort Lewis, Washington soldiers killed in action affected “funerals”, implying that military honor guards would only be available for graveside services on [...]
I’m sure this post will raise the hackles of some of my younger readers (it sure did the last time I addressed Baby Boomers), but never let it be said that Part of the Plan shirks the controversial topics!
One guy writing a letter to the DesNews:
Nicholson leaves huge void
I was saddened to learn about the resignation of Jim Nicholson, secretary of veterans affairs. He had a tough job defending the revelations of shoddy health care at Walter Reed Army Medical Center after the Bush administration’s inadequate funding. [...]
I caught a bit of the news last night where the Mittster tore into Obama for allegedly saying that sex education should be taught in kindergarten. He made it sound like Obama wants 5-year olds to be instructed in birth control.
Not quite…if you listen to his remarks, Obama suggested topics [...]
Somebody help me out, please.
At lunchtime today I pulled into a gas station, right behind another vehicle. I felt fortunate, because this is a very popular gas station at lunchtime, and they had just dropped the price of regular to $2.89, which is the lowest I’ve seen it for quite [...]
There was a post last night at Utah Amicus about Don Imus and a mysterious comment allegedly made by Mark Shurtleff.
The post has gone missing this morning.
I wonder why.
Update: Guess it was just a temporary thing. It’s back now. However, just so you know:
(click)
As a pilot, I have a morbid curiosity about aviation disasters, like the crash in Sao Paulo, Brazil on Tuesday. In that incident, the pilot of an Airbus A320 with almost 200 souls on board unsucessfully attempted a go-around after landing long on an extremely short and extremely wet runway [...]
One of the positive outcomes of the Milford Flat fire, for me anyway, is a renewed interest in the issue of cheatgrass and wildfires. I’m not concerned with how cheatgrass was introduced…only with how it has become such a menace, and how we can control, eradicate and prevent it from [...]
ThinkProgress:Â Â VA Chief Jim Nicholson Resigns
Nicholson was perhaps the worst of the incompetent, unqualified lot of GWB political appointees. He made Mikey “You’re Doin A Heckuva Job” Brown look good. I’ve pointed out Nicholson’s shortcomings several times:
Why Emailgate Does Not Surprise Me
Actually, it’s long overdue. I’ve made quite a few transatlantic flights in my life, and each one was an exercise in torture. I can never fall asleep in an airliner seat…even after eight hours. I think Lufthansa is on to something here (leave it to those wiley Germans to figure [...]
Update: Correct link to the UDOT aircraft schedule website.
Well, I called the Aeronautics Division aircraft scheduling office and talked to a nice young lady. When I asked about the website she said “Oh dear!”, then I heard her clicking away on her keyboard and, voila, the site was [...]
Update: So does Larry Johnson:
The ethnic cleansing of Baghdad is well advanced and the United States does not have the military force in place to alter the course of these events without engaging in a full scale war against the militias of Moqtada al Sadr and Abdul Aziz [...]
To recap, yesterday I stumbled across an interesting UDOT website which provided the flight itineraries for the small fleet of general-aviation aircraft operated by the Aeronautics Division of UDOT. Within two hours of posting UDOT Mystery Flights, that state website went down, returning only this cryptic message:
The Utah Department of Transportation has three aircraft available, ostensibly, for official state government travel. There is even a website where you can check on their availability. Most of the flights are rather mundane: total seats on aircraft, number of seats available, departure airport and time, arrival airport and [...]
In Pakistan, bin Laden patiently waits, comfortably esconced in the Northwest Frontier Province, surrounded and protected by tribes loyal to him, not the Pakistani “government”, run by a weak, incompetent military dictator cut from the same bolt of cloth as Saddam Hussein, whom we in turn support and protect, much [...]
Much has been made lately of Mitt Romney’s stint on the Marriott board of directors, given Marriott Hotels’ embrace of “pay-as-you-go” pornography. Well, now it appears that Marriott also supports “The World’s Oldest Profession”:
If you want to have sex with a prostitute in Washington D.C., try [...]
According to the NY Times, Young Mister Bush is poised to veto bipartisan legislation to expand the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), because it goes too far and costs too much. The difference between his plan and the one proposed by the Senate?
$45 billion.
That’s about what we spend every month [...]
That’s how a commenter to this story in TPM Cafe described the born-in-the-USA religious nutjobs who disrupted the Hindu guy’s opening prayer in the Senate yesterday. Incredible.
And yes, “religious nutjobs” are what they are…I refuse to describe them as “Christian right activists”…exactly what “rights” were they advocating by acting [...]
Because we don’t “get” 4GW.
Lind explains why.
Western militaries are as blind to 4GW as are the governments that direct and fund them. They see themselves as knights in shining armor who exist to fight other knights like themselves, not low-born musketeer “terrorists.” Conveniently, fighting other knights requires buying lots of [...]
I received this in an email today from Veterans For Common Sense:
Veterans for Common Sense urges our members and supporters to watch tonight’s ABC “World News Tonight” and ABC News “Nightline,” today, Thursday, July 12. The two programs are scheduled to feature breakthrough reporting from Joshua Kors, the journalist [...]
Yeah, I know, it’s a terrible pun. Poor John McCain’s week just went from bad to worse.
McCain’s Florida co-chair arrested– you won’t believe why
Hand salute: Wonkette
[...]With President Bush’s popularity scraping bottom in opinion polls, with U.S. casualties rising in Iraq in a force surge that has stretched soldier tours to 15 months, the Bush administration July 10 said it “strongly opposes” key military pay and benefit gains tossed into their fiscal 2008 defense bill.
Initiatives [...]
In a comment I made on March 30 to my own original Rudy Giuliani: Unfit To Be President post, I mentioned that I would return to discuss the urban legend surrounding Hizzoner’s alleged “courageous leadership” after 9/11.
Well, apparently I don’t have to. The International Association of Firefighters has [...]
Based on the professional assessment of world-renowned terrorism and intelligence expert, Michael “Chuck” Chertoff:
All these things have given me kind of a gut feeling that we are in a period of increased vulnerability.
(Lifted unabashedly from Danger Room)
I’ve been trying to get to this all day, but there has been so much other craziness and Twilight Zone-activity, that this one hardly merits mention. But it does again illustrate just how off-center the planet seems to be today.
[...]