There’s a hilarious tidbit at the end of this post:

Nor should they. I think we ought to leave Orszag and his love interests alone. But we ought to be troubled by the double standard the news media employ when they cover the sexual conduct of public figures, pillorying some like Woods, while more or less giving a pass to far more powerful individuals such as Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani. There’s a part of me that longs to see Orszag, shirtless and sweating and bespectacled, on the cover of a magazine—if not Vanity Fair, maybe Policy Review or Congressional Quarterly.

Rudy Guiliani got a pass? Really?

I guess he missed looking at this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, and this.

Give me a ringy-dingy when they form a “Catholics Against Tiger Woods” group, okay?

Just like his wife, Montgomery McFate, Sean McFate can’t wait to tell you how wonderful he is and how he knows better than anyone how to make a lot of money getting the military to do what he thinks it should do:

In May 2004, I was hired for an unusual job: The U.S. State Department contracted DynCorp International, a private military company, to build Liberia’s army. I was tapped as an architect of this new force. Previously I had worked for both the U.S. military and Amnesty International. I was a rare bird — an ex-paratrooper and human rights defender — and thus a good fit for this unprecedented task.

When I arrived in Liberia in 2004, the country’s army was, at best, a mess. After decades of civil war, soldiers’ hands were as bloodied as any rebels’. The troops were undisciplined, unpaid, and undertrained. They were a motley crew that protected no one in a country where pretty much everyone was vulnerable to violence. And it was our job to turn them into a professional military.

Today, just five years later, Liberia’s soldiers are among the best in the region. They have been vetted, trained, paid, and readied for action. The difference was the impact of that little-known U.S. initiative — the first of its kind — that literally rebuilt the Liberian army from scratch. Our goal was for the Liberian army to fill the role of U.N. peacekeepers as the latter were slowly phased out, and it worked astonishingly well.

Now that model might be of use again. President Barack Obama’s strategy for Afghanistan is predicated on creating Afghan security forces to replace coalition soldiers. The idea of training local troops to replace U.S. or international ones is not a new one; the United States famously tried to do it and failed in Vietnam. More recently, in 2005, then-President George W. Bush outlined his plan for Iraq and the aim that “as the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.” Yet the United States’ ability to raise foreign forces has been paltry. This is because raising an army is difficult and dangerous: Do it too well and it might turn into a Praetorian Guard or a vehicle for a coup d’état. Do the job poorly and it could terrorize the citizens it is sworn to protect and much worse.

Do it too well and you could delude yourself into thinking that training the Liberian Army is a useful tool for comparison.

I don’t think Mr. McFate has the credibility to boast about building an Army out of what is left of the armed forces of Liberia, nor does it make any sense to compare that effort to building the Afghan military. When he says that his team”vetted” the recruits, does it sort of not strike one as being ridiculous to think that vetting a Liberian for service in the military with flyers at bus stops is a little easier than vetting an Afghan to serve in the Afghan army, given the known infiltration of the ranks of the Afghan military by the Taliban? In order to propel Taliban recruits into the Afghan military, all one would have to do is compel a handful of people to say positive things to the “vetting” team about a recruit, and kill anyone who might say something negative.

Given this tidbit:

Sean McFate is the son of Mary Lou Sapone (a.k.a. Mary McFate), the NRA-connected private spy who infiltrated the gun control movement for about 15 years. Her tale was first disclosed by Mother Jones last week. That article noted that Sean, a Brown- and Harvard-educated paratrooper, and his wife, Montgomery McFate, a controversial Pentagon adviser, had once both worked for Mary Lou Sapone’s business, which specialized, according to an old version of Montgomery’s resume, in “domestic and internal opposition research” and “special investigations.” Sean and Montgomery McFate might also have been involved in Mary Lou Sapone’s penetration of the gun control community.

More recently, Sean McFate was program director of the national security initiative at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a Washington think tank boasting an advisory board composed of four former Senate majority leaders: Howard Baker, Bob Dole, George Mitchell, and Tom Daschle. That is, he was until the appearance of the Mother Jones story on his mother.

I also think that one should acknowledge that Lieutenant Colonel Chris Wyatt was the military officer in charge of the training, and that he was forced to defend the notion of using contractors back in 2008. In fact, McFate isn’t even mentioned in that Voice of America article. It’s a little difficult to reconcile how he can now claim to have built the Liberian Army when he wasn’t even worth mentioning or interviewing by a decidedly friendly news outlet that wanted to promote the success of rebuilding the Liberian military.

When you think back over the last few years, it strikes me as peculiar that anyone would be surprised at the hypocrisy of the Democrat Party. When they were out of power, every misstep by the Bush Administration was the end of the world. Now that we’ve seen them run things for nearly a year, every misstep is an easy-to-justify “blip” that “won’t happen again.”

In politics, hypocrisy is all in the eye of the beholder. If you’re a down-the-line Independent like myself, you can’t help but smile when they trot out their justifications for things. I’m speaking of both parties. I don’t find anything in either party to inspire me. I certainly don’t expect my government to keep me safe. I do expect them to pretend to care:

With today’s release of the Obama administration’s report on what went wrong to allow a Nigerian man to allegedly board a U.S.-bound flight with explosives, top government officials including [Michael] Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, will face increased scrutiny.

According to the Web site of the National Counterterrorism Center, the NCTC has two core missions: “The first is to serve as the primary organization in the U.S. government for analysis and integration of all terrorism intelligence. In this role Mr. Leiter reports to Dennis C. Blair, the Director of National Intelligence. The second mission is to conduct strategic operational planning for counterterrorism activities integrating all elements of U.S. national power. In this role he reports to President Obama.”

The New York Daily News reports today that Leiter, who was originally appointed to his position by President George W. Bush, didn’t cut short his ski vacation after suspect Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was taken into custody. “It is our policy to not make our director’s schedule available to the public,” center spokesman Carl Kropf said in an e-mail to the newspaper.

That’s what a man who believes that he cannot be fired does.

He shrugs, and keeps having fun. Your safety and security are none of his concern, even though he’s getting paid to make it his concern.

When you have a position like that, one of the trade-offs is, you have to be ready to show the flag and you have to end vacations and the like in order to give the appearance of caring. You might actually care, I don’t deny that. You might actually have more than a passing concern. But when you are hot shit that cannot be fired, you strut around and tell others to pound sand. When you cannot even make a token effort to pretend to represent yourself as a steward of public safety, that’s when you might as well start looking at private sector opportunities.

And this also speaks to another issue. When people defend President Obama, do they forget that he kept a significant number of Bush appointees? That he kept over 50 of the Bush-era Justice Department U.S. Attorneys in place (the rest of the 93 U.S. Attorneys simply resigned to go do other things) speaks volumes.

I guess there’s some sort of verification method that escapes the likes of me:

Northern Ireland’s largest Protestant paramilitary group announced Wednesday that it had finally surrendered all of its weapons, more than a decade after the historic Good Friday Agreement formally ended violent sectarian struggle in the province.

Independent monitors confirmed that the Ulster Defense Assn.’s guns and bombs had been put out of commission, meaning that the main armed organizations on both sides of the loyalist-republican divide have been disarmed.

The step was hailed as a milestone by the British government, which has imposed a Feb. 9 deadline for weapons held by underground groups to be turned in without penalty. After that, those possessing weapons could face criminal prosecution.

“This is a major act of leadership by the UDA and further comprehensive evidence of the success of politics over violence in Northern Ireland,” said Shaun Woodward, the Cabinet minister in charge of Northern Ireland affairs.

The UDA was the last major group to surrender its arsenal, a stash it used to brutal effect during “the Troubles.”

Any cursory study of the conflict in Northern Ireland leads a person to believe that groups with religious differences can eventually reconcile. I would submit to you that what has stabilized Northern Ireland is entirely an economic situation that makes conflict unprofitable. During the conflict. the deep post-war economic troubles of Great Britain as a whole exacerbated the poverty of the Catholics and Protestants alike. Laws that disenfranchised Catholics helped maintain that poverty for decades. When you demonstrate to both sides of a conflict that their economic well being is threatened, and then show them that their plight can improve if they turn in their guns and bombs, you might end up with a shaky detente and a partial disarmament.

Northern Ireland still has major problems, not the least of which are economic and racist and nature, but, just the fact that people are turning in their guns is a positive step forward. I used to think it was worthwhile to study the British use of “Counterinsurgency” in Northern Ireland; I think it would be more useful to understand the economic policies that finally brought everyone into the 21st Century.

Livio Radio for Pandora

Last year, when I was dictating to my staff the details of my burgeoning Internet empire, I told them that I might want to have a food blog, but I definitely wanted a gadget blog. My food blog lasted about a week. Some dingbat complained that I stole her recipe, but, under basic fair use rules, I was solid. I deleted the food blog. I truck no complaints from dingbats.

I started gadjimatronics because I like to invent words. I came up with “widebody slapfaces” and “barfunked” and “skadiggety” and “bum scuffles” and a bunch of other brilliant words, but I think “gadjimatronics” is probably the best one of all. You’re welcome.

When you have 20 or more blogs, and only spend about twenty minutes a day working on them, things tend to get a little loose. Don’t expect too many posts over there for a while. I have naps to take, and pictures of hotties to give the thumb up or the thumb down to. Byron selects ALL of the hottie pictures, and I sit on the couch, watching Sportscenter. He patiently tabs through them, and I give him an up or down, and then he crops them and organizes them. The boy is masterful when it comes to Internet pornography, I have to admit.

Miranda drops in once in a while and changes the text below the title and then tells me what to write about. Some of this comes from her mother, my ex-wife, so I have to be careful.

Anyway, the point of this post was to yap about something called Pandora Radio:

Pandora Inc. has struck a deal with electronics maker Pioneer Corp. that promises to make it easier for drivers to listen to its personalized radio service in cars—bringing Internet radio one step closer to snagging a built-in spot on dashboards. The development represents a direct challenge to broadcasters of satellite and traditional radio, who have long dreaded the arrival of Internet radio in cars.

Starting in March, Pioneer will sell a navigation and entertainment device that allows Pandora users who stream the service on their AppleInc. iPhones to easily access Pandora in their cars. The $1,200 navigation system, announced today at the Consumer Electronics show in Las Vegas, will detect iPhones and iPod touches that have Pandora installed, and put the consumer’s Pandora settings on the navigation screen. That will allow drivers to hear their favorite Pandora radio channels.

Neither side paid cash to work with the other, said Ted Cardenas, director of marketing for Pioneer, who says he saw it as an opportunity to reach many of Pandora’s 42 million users. “This gives us the ability to talk to an entirely new group of consumers,” he said in an interview.

At Pandora, executives hope the deal will help expand the way its fans think of the service. “Maybe a year ago people would have said Pandora is a computer thing,” said co-founder Tim Westergren. Now, “they’re beginning to realize that Internet radio is an anytime, anywhere thing.”

Radio companies, long used to a relative monopoly on dashboards, have been nervously anticipating the era when they will lose their dominance in cars. They have been working hard on their own online radio services, which include streamed versions of their regular stations as well as Internet-only stations.

Sounds like a wonderful innovation, but, correct me if I’m wrong—isn’t there supposed to be some way to interrupt regular radio programming for emergencies? How do you get breaking news of traffic and public safety information in a reliable way? Do you have to have subscriptions to local stations that would give you that? Do you have a way to shut down or interrupt streaming music? It would be rare that this would be an issue, but, in some areas of the country, the weather makes local radio indispensable. Some of these devices have been around since September, I see. Looks somewhat big and bulky, but I suspect that the device will shrink and change with innovation.

Third Generation (3G) networks are already overwhelmed, especially in New York City. If you mean to say that, by adding tens of thousands of users of Pandora to an existing network infrastructure, you’ll be compensating for that by building up that infrastructure, all well and good. Where’s the plan? Where’s the money? And when will someone admit that the fees for Pandora would have to go up as network costs rise? What if the Internet slows or goes out altogether? Broadcast radio can be sent out from remote locations, powered by fueled generators, to devices run on batteries. Can the Internet radio do that? Or will the 3G networks collapse if the power is out for too long? I can tell you one thing—if the data networks don’t start increasing their capacity, consumers are going to revolt and abandon these services BEFORE they can start making a lot of money.

What are the lobbyists doing to level this playing field? Major broadcasters ARE NOT going to stand by and do nothing. Laws and regulations are coming.

It sounds wonderful, but usually, things that go bust sound like the cat’s pajamas. Satellite radio certainly sounded like that.

Apparently, people are just now figuring out that there is no substance to the Obama Administration:

Just before Christmas, on December 20, 2009, Dr. Drew Westen posted a lengthy article at Huffington Post entitled Leadership, Obama Style, and the Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator. Dr. Westen’s piece caused quite a stir in both the blogosphere and more traditional media, and rightfully so in light of the comprehensive discussion he gives on the Obama phenomenon, what it has brought and where it is leading the country and Democratic party.

Curiously, I may have been the only one who didn’t see Drew’s article when it originally hit. This is a shame because on January 1st I did a post, Obama’s Royal Scam and The Iron Fist Of Rahm, that would have been greatly enhanced had I possessed the benefit of Dr. Westen’s piece when writing. Because of the parallel nature of our subject matters, I was asked to host Dr. Westen today for a chat on his hard hitting and important Huffington Post article. Today’s discussion will be of great interest to most everybody at Firedoglake irrespective of your relative view.

Dr. Westen’s whole piece is a must read in its entirety, but here is a sample:

As the president’s job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent, the Democratic base has become demoralized, and Independents have gone from his source of strength to his Achilles Heel, it’s time to reflect on why. The conventional wisdom from the White House is those “pesky leftists” — those bloggers and Vermont Governors and Senators who keep wanting real health reform, real financial reform, immigration reform not preceded by a year or two of raids that leave children without parents, and all the other changes we were supposed to believe in.

Somehow the president has managed to turn a base of new and progressive voters he himself energized like no one else could in 2008 into the likely stay-at-home voters of 2010, souring an entire generation of young people to the political process. It isn’t hard for them to see that the winners seem to be the same no matter who the voters select (Wall Street, big oil, big Pharma, the insurance industry). In fact, the president’s leadership style, combined with the Democratic Congress’s penchant for making its sausage in public and producing new and usually more tasteless recipes every day, has had a very high toll far from the left: smack in the center of the political spectrum.

What’s costing the president and courting danger for Democrats in 2010 isn’t a question of left or right, because the president has accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center.

Drew gives an incredibly broad and fair discussion of President Obama’s record of leadership to date from the feckless to the fantastic.

I was sounding the alarm bells here, here, here, here and here. But, as usual, no one was reading my blog except for my mother, my new assistant Mr. Peej, and some fellows looking for a picture or two of Rachel Ray’s Magnificent Ass.

Michael Steele paid these interns nothing to help him waste a whole lot of money

Were I still active as a fundraiser, I would keep my money from going to the Republican National Committee until Chairman Michael Steele could be removed:

A 2009 spending spree has left the Republican National Committee (RNC) with its worst election-year cash flow this decade.

The largest GOP party committee has $8.7 million in the bank heading into an election year with 37 governors’ races, a dozen major Senate contests, dozens more in the House and an all-important redistricting cycle on the horizon.

Said one RNC official: “It is very troubling, and the thing is, most people don’t understand this. But it is really troubling.”

The RNC had $22.8 million in cash and no debt when Michael Steele was elected chairman at the end of January, but has since seen its cash on hand drop to less than $9 million at the end of November.

Over the previous five months, while governors’ battles were being waged in New Jersey and Virginia, the committee saw its cash reserves drop by a full $15 million. Through November, the committee spent more than $90 million last year, which is nearly $20 million more than the Democratic National Committee (DNC).

“They’re spending money at 2002 levels when they are not raising money at those levels,” said a GOP operative. “That kind of thing worked when RNC was awash in money, but you can’t do that in this environment.”

And now it is time to get rid of Michael Steele. You do not screw up the money when you’re running the RNC. This is one of those times when someone, somewhere is running out of a building with their hair on fire. If I’m noticing how bad it is, imagine how it is for the people who are still in their funding stream.

I’m still not comfortable flying anywhere in this country. I cannot imagine what it must be like to get off a plane and try to get back into this country right now. Jules Crittenden has an excellent take on what recently happened to one fellow in Seattle:

When an American journalist back from the war has to report from personal experience on exactly how screwed up are the priorities and procedures of the Transportation Security Administration, in the immediate aftermath of that embarrassing underwear business, and delivers this verdict. Michael Yon on Facebook, via Instapundit: 

When they handcuffed me, I said that no country has ever treated me so badly. Not China. Not Vietnam. Not Afghanistan. Definitely not Singapore or India or Nepal or Germany, not Brunei, not Indonesia, or Malaysia, or Kuwait or Qatar or United Arab Emirates. No county has treated me with the disrespect that can be expected from our border bullies.

His crime? When asked by a government security guard how much he makes, he declined to answer, saying it was not relevant to airline security. Big Government has a Yon interview.

My own experience with Customs in 2003 was handled somewhat more professionally. There was one uniformed bozo, when in the process of answering all their questions I asked what the problem was and whether I was looking at charges, said repeatedly, “We can do this the easy way or we can this the hard way.” Even his plainclothes superior rolled his eyes at that. My personal electronics, field gear and assorted war detritus, seized by Customs in the midst of a war loot scandal, was eventually returned to me, with the exception of a notorious Saddam painting they insisted they would be returning to the grateful Iraqi people. If anyone actually witnessed that happy event, please let me know, I’d love to hear about it.

The first thing I noticed here is that the question “how much money do you make” is probably the stupidest question a security person screening threats could ask. No one in their right mind would answer that question truthfully. There are still men of my age and experience in this country who won’t answer that question in a court of law, much less in front of a gaggle of widebody slapfaces who are dressed up in rent-a-cop shirts. If you are asking a question that cannot be verified by independent pieces of information (sorry, wardrobe won’t work because we are a dressed down society), you are wasting time.

The second thing is the absence of the partisan angle here. It’s the government bureaucracy and inefficiency and incompetence that is at fault here. What, President Bush is to blame? No. President Obama is to blame? Only so far as he has not been able to put qualified people in place. Nominating someone held by Senator Jim De Mint means that someone has not sat down with the good Senator and worked things out. How hard is it for a sitting President, who has actually served in the United States Senate, to go and talk to the Senator who is holding his nominee? Oh, that’s right. You actually have to have showed up for more than a few votes here and there to build that rapport. I got it now.

The third thing is, what—no one realizes that our enemies will adapt their dress, demeanor, and appearance to that of someone who will slide past security. The next bomber or bombers will be a girl with a pretty face, willing to give lap dances to bored rent-a-cops. In the full burqa, of course.

When I found myself weeping uncontrollably this morning, I knew it had to be because something had gone terribly wrong during a Bowl Game that I did not bother to watch:

University of Missouri administrators have apologized to the U.S. Naval Academy for what it says was a misunderstanding by its band during the Texas Bowl game last week.

The band has been criticized on blogs and online news forums for playing the Missouri fight song after the Naval Academy began playing its theme song after the game.

The two bands had agreed before the game that the losing team’s band would play first, followed by the winner. Navy defeated Missouri 35-13 in last Thursday’s game. Missouri spokeswoman Mary Jo Banken said Missouri’s band didn’t realize the Naval Academy had begun playing.

She says the school did not intend to to disrespect Navy tradition. The Naval Academy issued a statement saying it considered the issue a misunderstanding.

If I don’t do any more blogging today, it’s because I had to reach out and holla at my peeps, and let them know that I was okay.

Ady Gil, from deck of Shonan Maru No. 2

The confrontation between environmental activists and Japanese whaling vessels just took a turn in a new direction:

A conservation group’s boat had its bow sheared off and was taking on water Wednesday after it collided with a Japanese whaling ship in the frigid waters of Antarctica, the group said. The boat’s six crew members were safely rescued.

The clash was the most serious in the past several years, during which the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has sent vessels into far-southern waters to try to harass the Japanese fleet into ceasing its annual whale hunt.

Clashes using hand-thrown stink bombs, ropes meant to tangle propellers and high-tech sound equipment have been common in recent years, and collisions between ships have sometimes occurred.

The society said its vessel Ady Gil — a high-tech speedboat that resembles a stealth bomber — was hit by the Japanese ship the Shonan Maru near Commonwealth Bay and had about 10 feet (three meters) of its bow knocked off.

Losing three meters of your bow is one way to go about things. Back in Japan, there is elation. The fishing vessel, Shonan Maru No. 2, is now the most popular thing afloat.

Ady Gil

Over at the Japan Times, there are these details:

Paul Watson, head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, told Kyodo News the Shonan Maru No. 2, a vessel sent by Japan to ensure the security of its whaling fleet, deliberately rammed his group’s A$2 million (US$1.8 million) vessel Ady Gil and “sheared the bow right off.”

“It ripped 8 feet (2.5 meters) of the front of the vessel off,” Watson said. “At this point it does not look salvageable. It’s taking on water.”

According to his account, both vessels has been stationary in the water when the Shonan Maru No. 2 started up and then steered deliberately into the Ady Gil, which had been harassing the fleet, at around 3:50 p.m. Australian time.

One of the Ady Gil’s six crew members sustained several cracked ribs in the incident, he said, adding that five crew members were evacuated, but its captain remained onboard “trying to see what he can do to salvage the vessel … or at least some of the equipment.”

Watson, speaking from aboard the ship Steve Irwin, also said Sea Shepherd put out a mayday distress signal “but the Japanese fleet refused to acknowledge that and just kept going. It was a hit and run.”

The Japanese Fisheries Agency blamed the collision on Sea Shepherd, saying the Shonan Maru No. 2 crew had tried to ward off the approaching Ady Gil with water cannon but the antiwhaling vessel employed maneuvers such as suddenly reducing speed, which resulted in the collision.

Glenn Inwood, the spokesman for the Institute of Cetacean Research, said that according to his report the Ady Gil was idling in the water and then went “full steam ahead” to cut off Shonan Maru No.2. He said the Ady Gil skipper miscalculated and the “fault lies” with Sea Shepherd vessel for the collision.

According to Watson, the Shonan Maru No. 2 has been “particularly aggressive” this year after it earlier tried to damage the activists’ helicopter. “I think their order this year is to try and cause material damage to the ships.”

Bias? Hard to say. Either way you look at it, that was quite the bum scuffle on the high seas. Here is a previous story on the organization in question, and all I can say is, the United States needs to stay out of this conflict. No good can come out of getting between whale meat and the conservationists who oppose the hunt.

Senator Byron Dorgan, Left, and Senator Christopher Dodd, Right

Senators Chris Dodd and Byron Dorgan are getting out while they still can. Dorgan was not much of a surprise to me, but Dodd? Dodd was a surprise:

Democratic Sen. Chris Dodd will announce Wednesday that he is retiring ahead of his re-election this November, sources told NBC News policital director Chuck Todd.

The embattled Connecticut senator has scheduled a press conference at his home Wednesday, the Washington Post reported Tuesday night.

Earlier, Democratic Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota said he would not to seek re-election this year, giving Republicans a good shot at picking up the seat, especially if GOP Gov. John Hoeven decides to run.

I guess this means that the Democrat Party is doing rather well, don’t you think? Retirements come and go. At a time when your party controls the White House and both houses of Congress, 2010 is a rough road for many of these Democrats to have to try to travel. Had they done anything this year worth running on, I doubt neither of these men would leave the Senate at the apex of the Obama Presidency.

For all the bluster about the demise of the Republican Party, never forget that the only reason there still is a Republican Party is because President Barack Obama let it back up off the mat. In the world of professional wrestling, which is practically a political one, that’s a costly mistake for the supposed “good guy” to make. Senator Joe Lieberman then becomes the senior Senator from Connecticut, at least for a few years. How is that going to play in crazy liberal blogtown? 

I rather enjoy “schooling” people on what it means to be an American, and to have an American form of government. The insanity out there is mounting by the day. Liberal blogs are racked with crazy people, spouting gibberish and things like “Cheney is teh suck!” and “give me money because I’m broke!”

The Wall Street Journal is a favorite stomping ground. This article was good reading, more so for the comments than anything else:

James Langelle

The Wall Street Journal, fortunately, has a lot of smart people who read it. I do relish the fine art of refuting their bullshit:

Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, Jordanian suicide bomber responsible for CIA deaths in Afghanistan, a.k.a. “Dujana Khorasani” was also active on local jihad websites, read excerpts from postings, translated, see:

Dujana Khorasani Journal

http://www.talibantaxi.com/journal.html

Michael McManus

Perhaps this is me, but this babble is near incomprehensible. The author seems to suffer from acute schizophrenia whose respect for life would make your average serial killer look like a good samaritan. This passage has convinced me that we need to significantly increase the resources allocated to eliminate the clearly self pronounced world threat. We need a worldwide grass roots effort to augment our intelligence efforts as indicated by the Major General. We as Americans need to unify on this issue, assist in the intelligence gathering, and use every means at our disposal to eliminate what appears to be an army of walking, thinking Zombies filled with hate, devoid of feeling, and at war with all that makes us human.

Norman Rogers

I would tend to agree with you, but the problem with your statement is “We as Americans need to unify on this issue, assist in the intelligence gathering, and use every means at our disposal to eliminate what appears to be an army of walking, thinking Zombies filled with hate, devoid of feeling, and at war with all that makes us human.”

First of all, it’s a populist sentiment run amok. Americans don’t need to unify on anything. We have chosen a political system of political parties—not the Washingtonian ideal, but it is de facto that we will never “unify” but we can “agree to disagree.” Second of all, when you state that we Americans need to “assist in the intelligence gathering,” no, in point of fact, we do NOT need a nation of people acting like Mrs. Kravitz. We do not need neighbor turning on neighbor—see the former Soviet Union for a state run intelligence gathering apparatus that pitted comrade against comrade and failed. Third, you ascribe a “zombie” element to the radical who practices jihad—no, they are mere mortals. They are not invincible. If they wish to die for their cause, make them die for their cause. Go not merely at their minions but at their command and control. Hold them at the jugular and never stop kicking them in the pants. Fourth, this is why we have a limited government—to handle the things which we, as a citizenry, should not. I have a lot of well meaning neighbors—none of them I’d want handling basic intelligence gathering, weapons, or the enemy who brings jihad to our shores. I have one neighbor who tried to use his snow blower to clear leaves from his garden pond—his electric snow blower, if you can believe that.

I have serious doubts whether this would happen:

Encouraged by a group of influential New York Democrats, Harold Ford Jr., the former congressman from Tennessee, is weighing a bid to unseat Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand in this fall’s Democratic primary, according to three people who have spoken with him.

Mr. Ford, 39, who moved to New York three years ago, has told friends that he will decide whether to run in the next 45 days. The discussions between Mr. Ford and top Democratic donors reflect the dissatisfaction of some prominent party members with Ms. Gillibrand, who has yet to win over key constituencies, especially in New York City.

About a dozen high-profile Democrats have expressed interest in backing a candidacy by Mr. Ford, including the financier Steven Rattner, who, along with his wife, Maureen White, has been among the country’s most prolific Democratic fund-raisers.

“Maureen and I worked hard for Harold in his last race because we think the world of him,” Mr. Rattner said, referring to Mr. Ford’s run for the Senate in Tennessee in 2006. “He has extraordinary drive and intelligence and will excel at anything that he chooses to do.”

Harold Ford Jr. is a young man, but he’s a loser. A serious, serious loser with no appeal to the Democrat Party. He’s a limousine liberal, nothing more. I think the feeling here might be that a limousine liberal is guaranteed a better chance in a state full of limousine liberals like New York.

Stranger things have happened. I seriously doubt whether Ford could get elected dog catcher in New York. He has the Imus issue to deal with, and, in New York, I wonder if Don Imus can do anything to  stop a Ford candidacy for the United States Senate. Does he have a big enough platform to do something about it, should he choose to take to the air and mock Ford as a carpetbagger in reverse?

Someone at Foreign Policy probably reads my blog, religiously, and went back and read what I wrote in May of last year:

The ship of state is a peculiar thing. It changes hands when one political party takes it away at the ballot box from another political party (sometimes, there are more than two). Very little change actually happens. This allows a Republican like myself to sit and wonder at the fuss caused when liberals are on the upswing. I’ve seen it many times in my life. Jimmy Carter was supposed to be a trend, not a fad. Same with Bill Clinton. The only constant is this—power is corruption, and Americans don’t seem to realize this. Otherwise, incumbents wouldn’t be locked into a system that returns them to office far more often than not. In the Obama era, the ship of state seems to be sailing along as if George W. Bush were still calling the shots:

The Obama administration has informed a federal judge it will continue to invoke the “state secrets” privilege in a legal battle with an Islamic charity suspected of funding terrorism.

The United States has designated the Oregon-based al-Haramain Islamic Foundation as a terrorist organization. The group, which has sued the government over alleged warrantless wiretapping, is demanding classified information about the program.

U.S. officials have refused to tell the charity’s lawyers whether the group was subjected to presidentially authorized, warrantless, foreign intelligence surveillance in 2004 and, if so, what information was obtained.

In a court document filed overnight in San Francisco and released early Saturday in Washington, the Justice Department said its case-by-case review of the government’s use of the state secrets defense has not changed its position in the al-Haramain case.

The defense allows courts to block lawsuits against the government on grounds that the litigation could harm national security.

“An additional review was conducted at the highest levels of the Department of Justice to determine whether continued invocation of the privilege was warranted,” the government told the court.

“Based on that review, it is the government’s position that disclosure of classified information … would create intolerable risks to national security.”

The Obama administration has criticized President Bush’s Justice Department for invoking the state secrets defense too quickly.

The Obama people know that if they deviate from a set path, the threat of terrorism will rear up as an electoral issue. That is, if a terror attack were to happen because the Obama adminsitration abandoned common sense and started acting as if it didn’t have to protect American lives, the Obama administration would be thrown out of office as being “soft on terror.” That phrase “soft on terror” is one I would plan on hearing more about, because the Obama administration has made up its mind that it will let the Republicans have that as an issue. That being said, I have to shake my head and laugh. What did you think you were voting for, liberals? Change? The only thing that has changed is that people think they’re getting good government and the rule of law back. They’re simply not getting anything of the kind. They’re getting another administration terrified of being thrown out of office.

I hate to say I told you so, but what else can you say to this:

Sept. 11, 2001, was one of those rare and electrifying moments that waken Jacksonian America and focus its attention on the international arena. The U.S. homeland was not only under attack, it was under attack by an international conspiracy of terrorists who engaged in what Jacksonians consider dishonorable warfare: targeting civilians. Jacksonian attitudes toward war were shaped by generations of conflict with Native American peoples across the United States and before that by centuries of border conflict in England, Scotland, and Ireland. Against “honorable” enemies who observe the laws of war, one is obliged to fight fair; those who disregard the rules must be hunted down and killed, regardless of technical niceties.

When the United States is attacked, Jacksonians demand action; they leave strategy to the national leadership. But Bush’s tough-minded Jacksonian response to 9/11 — invading Afghanistan and toppling the Taliban government that gave safe haven to the plotters — gave way to what appeared to be Wilsonian meddling in Iraq. Originally, Bush’s argument for overthrowing Saddam Hussein rested on two charges that resonated powerfully with Jacksonians: Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction, and he had close links with al Qaeda. But the war dragged on, and as Hussein’s fabled hoards of WMD failed to appear and the links between Iraq and al Qaeda failed to emerge, Bush shifted to a Wilsonian rationale. This was no longer a war of defense against a pending threat or a war of retaliation; it was a war to establish democracy, first in Iraq and then throughout the region. Nation-building and democracy-spreading became the cornerstones of the administration’s Middle East policy.

Bush could not have developed a strategy better calculated to dissolve his political support at home. Jacksonians historically have little sympathy for expensive and risky democracy-promoting ventures abroad. They generally opposed the humanitarian interventions in Somalia, Bosnia, and Haiti during the Clinton years; they did not and do not think American young people should die and American treasure should be scattered to spread democracy or protect human rights overseas. Paradoxically, Jacksonians also opposed “cut and run” options to end the war in Iraq even as they lost faith in both Bush and the Republican Party; they don’t like wars for democracy, but they also don’t want to see the United States lose once troops and the national honor have been committed. In Bush’s last year in office, a standoff ensued: The Democratic congressional majorities were powerless to force change in his Iraq strategy and Bush remained free to increase U.S. troop levels, yet the war itself and Bush’s rationale for it remained deeply unpopular.

Enter Obama. An early and consistent opponent of the Iraq war, Obama was able to bring together the elements of the Democratic Party’s foreign-policy base who were most profoundly opposed to (and horrified by) Bush’s policy. Obama made opposition to the Iraq war a centerpiece of his eloquent campaign, drawing on arguments that echoed U.S. anti-war movements all the way back to Henry David Thoreau’s opposition to the Mexican-American War.

Like Carter in the 1970s, Obama comes from the old-fashioned Jeffersonian wing of the Democratic Party, and the strategic goal of his foreign policy is to reduce America’s costs and risks overseas by limiting U.S. commitments wherever possible. He’s a believer in the notion that the United States can best spread democracy and support peace by becoming an example of democracy at home and moderation abroad. More than this, Jeffersonians such as Obama think oversize commitments abroad undermine American democracy at home. Large military budgets divert resources from pressing domestic needs; close association with corrupt and tyrannical foreign regimes involves the United States in dirty and cynical alliances; the swelling national-security state threatens civil liberties and leads to powerful pro-war, pro-engagement lobbies among corporations nourished on grossly swollen federal defense budgets.

Comparisons to Lincoln, my ass.

Every day, we see new revelations that the basic, common sense security needs of a mass-transit air travel system are a privacy-invading joke. Every day we find out something they’re not doing, something some incompetent careerist has bungled, something that some political appointee has conflated or confused or obstructed or just plain lied about.

What was this about having the adults run things for a change?

The “tattoo” device

A mother and father in Georgia used the device pictured above to tattoo their own children. Their own underage children:

Police say [Patty Jo Marsh and her husband Jacob Edwards Bartels] used a plastic pen body with a needle made from a guitar string connected to an electric motor to tattoo six children and themselves.

Five children, aged 10 to 17, got a cross-like tattoo on their hands and a sixth had “mom and dad” inked on his arm — in honor of you know who..

Only the youngest child was ink-free.

The Georgia Department of Family and Children’s Services was called. All the children were placed with other family members upon the couple’s arrest.

Marsh says she gave the children tattoos because “they asked us to.”

“It’s unusual,” said [Chattanooga? what the hell?] County Sheriff John Everett, to the city’s local paper. “I’ve never seen parents tattooing their kids like that.”

“I’m their mother. Shouldn’t I be able to decide if they get one?” Marsh said according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, after being released from jail on bail.

“They weren’t hurt by them,” Marsh said to the paper.

“We would never do anything to hurt them….I don’t understand why this is getting ‘blowed up’ so big.”

This is getting ‘blowed up’ so big because you’re trash, my good lady. Your children should not have to pay the price for your witless and toothless insanity. I’ve never been a fan of having the government tell people how to live, but this is one of those instances where the government needs to step in, on behalf of the children, and do something more than just walk away in frustration.

Do you get the feeling that Georgia, which is practically Florida anyway, is already two states too many for us to handle? My goodness.