COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

... Bud Light????

Labels: beer, Obama

The Obama administration, parting with years of practice under Bush, folds like a cheap tent.

Labels: Al Qaeda, law, Obama, stupid, War on Terror

...over Cheney's secret energy task force meetings?

That was then, this is now.

Splash, out

Jason

UPDATE: To add to the irony, Biden once referred to Cheney as "the most dangerous vice president we've had probably in American history?"

Labels: Biden, energy, Politics, The Left

Back when Bush was President, and Republicans controlled Congress, Obama objected to the Republicans pushing legislation through to fast.

That was then, this is now.

Labels: Congress, Obama, Politics

She's not.

Labels: environment, stupid, The Left

This one with a South Florida connection: A Navy commander has filed a complaint with the Miami Herald over reporter Carol Rosenberg's offensive and degrading behavior and questioning.



Full complaint here.

I don't know if he would have much standing, since they don't have the same employers. And I don't like the precedent of government officials suing newspapers for allowing their reporters to create a hostile work environment. Still, if she is interfering with the AP photographer's work, and publicly inferring that the Navy officer is gay - knowing that if the reputation stuck, he would lose his career, Rosenberg comes extremely close to committing a couple of torts.

If these reports are true - and there are apparently lots of witnesses, Rosenberg is sullying the Miami Herald brand. Her reporting is not to be trusted. She seems to have come unglued. She should be fired. It's not like there aren't good, underemployed journalists out there to replace her with.

Way to cultivate your sources, moron!

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: culture, journalism, law, Miami Herald, Navy, Sex, stupid, The media

I died doing what I was born to do I was happy and felt great about myself although the army was sadly the ending of me it was also the making of me so please don't feel any hate toward it.

A 19-year-old British private's letters home, including his last one.

Rest ye well, brother.

Labels: Afghanistan, in memoriam

It ain't a coincidence.

The more Obama and his misguided policy initiatives wash up on the legislative rocks, the faster the recovery will come.
This is the change we've been hoping for.

Now find your Congressional representatives when they come home for recess and drive a stake through ObamaCare's heart.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: economy, health care, Obama

The Washington Post reports:

The president recalled that as a boy living in Hawaii, he would perch on his grandfather's shoulders and watch the space capsules land in the Pacific Ocean.

Oh. My. God.

He'll probably get a pass on this one, though. The paper's reporter, by using the verb 'recalled' instead of the more skeptical (and appropriate) verb "claimed," demonstrates she'll believe anything.

Splash, out

Jason

UPDATE: The White House website transcribes the President's remarks thus:

I should note, just personally, I grew up in Hawaii, as many of you know, and I still recall sitting on my grandfather's shoulders when those capsules would land in the middle of the Pacific and they'd get brought back and we'd go out and we'd pretend like they could see us as we were waving at folks coming home. And I remember waving American flags and my grandfather telling me that the Apollo mission was an example of how Americans can do anything they put their minds to.

So it was the Post's screw-up, not a lie by the President. Consider this post retracted, with my apologies.

Labels: Obama, space, stupid

I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the byline.

Here's something you should know about Peter Singer: He's an avowed eugenicist. Not only has he made the case for the elevation of animals to an equal moral plane with humans... he has, in the not-too-distant past, made a methodical and affirmative case for the murder of disabled infants.

Now, you don't get the full effect of his argument from his Wikipedia page. At least in its iteration as of this writing. So let's go to a friendlier forum: AnimalLiberationFront.com

But there is another case in which Singer supports infanticide that raises the blood pressure of his critics, one where he brings an impaired newborn into a cold calculation of pain and pleasure and concludes one life-form is exchangeable for another. "When the death of a disabled infant will lead to the birth of another infant with better prospects of a happy life, the total amount of happiness will be greater if the disabled infant is killed ... killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all."

This is a man who also stated in an interview with Ronald Bailey, that if he were solely responsible for his own mother, a victim of alzheimer's, she might not continue to live.

From the Animal Liberation Front profile:

A recent article in The New Yorker shrewdly identified a key contradiction in Singer's approach to ethics. Confronting him with the fact that his own mother was dying of Alzheimer's disease, which rendered her, in Singer's scheme, a "nonperson," but that he had not euthanized her, Singer responded by saying it was "different" in the case of someone he knew and loved, and that he choose to care for her as long as possible, spending copious amounts on health care, albeit on someone doomed to die, rather than giving the money to aid those who could live. "I think this has made me see how the issues of someone with these kinds of problems are really very difficult." Betraying the abstract viewpoint that is an occupational hazard of the academic, Singer had no problem of prescribing euthanasia to imaginary others, but found it impossible to do in his own case with someone all-too concrete.

Really, though, this is the thinking at the heart of progressivism: utilitarianist arguments that dismiss the dignity and natural rights of the individual in favor of the collective.

It is one thing to be a liberal. One can be a liberal and still have respect for the dignity of the individual, the human being created in God's image. Progressivism is different. Its misguided utilitarianism gave rise to the whackier theories of Margaret Sanger, whose views are of a piece with the Nazis of the Third Reich, with the Stalinist collective farms and institutionalized collective child rearing, and with Peter Singer and Universal Health Care.

The masses do not think of UHC in those terms. But they are rubes. The intellectual progressives are fully aware that UHC will lead to eugenics and euthenasia at the margins.

What surprises me is that I haven't seen anyone make the connection between Singer and his earlier controversial views on infanticide. Perhaps, if he is associated with Obama and the libtard progressive UHC cause, he will deflate Obama's political capital in a hurry and cause UHC to take its rightful place in the dustbin of Congressional history.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Economics, health care, Peter Singer, The Left

...And like shit through a goose, the irony is totally lost on our spender-in-chief and his dimwit team of speechwiters.

Labels: Africa, business, Economics, finance, foreign policy, Obama, taxes

This time from David Brooks:

But it’s not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and the other traits associated with dignity.

Wow. Let's see that vaunted Obama dignity in action!








Obama.

Can you smell the dignity?

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: New York Times, Obama, stupid

Frank Rich, in a stupid column for the New York Times, can't resist throwing an elbow at a politician's child.

The essence of Palinism is emotional, not ideological. Yes, she is of the religious right, even if she winks literally and figuratively at her own daughter’s flagrant disregard of abstinence and marriage.

What a classless jerk.

Other than having committed the unpardonable sin of being born Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol did nothing to warrant getting slammed in the pages of the New York Times. What's important is that the family respects life. And lives by those values. But he's too poisoned by libtardism and bitterness to see that.

These ratfucks have a pathological obsession with Palin vaginas.

The game is evident. The libtard media has driven Palin from office by targeting her daughters.... or think they have. They will stop at nothing to use Bristol Palin and her child to attempt to discredit Sarah and drive a wedge between her and Christian voters. It won't work, though. Christians don't condemn premarital sex nearly so much as they 1.) value the sanctity of life, and 2.) Hate the judgementalism and venom coming from people like Frank Rich.

The libtard media is nothing but a pack of rabid hounds. In another time and place, they would probably be Red Army soldiers lined up to gang-rape German girls.

God, I hope she runs for President next time round. I can't say I'll vote for her over the other conservative nominees. I recognize her shortcomings as a candidate. But it might be worth voting for her just to give these bastards conniption fits.

It brings to mind the following line from Sylvia Plath:

Out of the ash I rise with my red hair
And eat men like air

Splash, out

Jason

P.S., Frank Rich has a problem with Bristol getting seduced by Levi as a teenager. But Rich, as a fully-formed adult, was seduced by a con-man, Alan Conway, who convinced Rich that he was really Stanley Kubrick.

That's right: Conway told Rich all the right things, said everything Rich wanted to hear... probably did the journalism equivalent of stroking Rich's hair. Rich was seduced. Taken in by this guy. And thought he was going to get an interview with Stanley Kubrick. Conway lied to him and Rich fell for it.

But Rich, the pathetic, blackened little cur, can't find it in his tar-pumping heart to cut some slack for a small-town teenage girl who's handsome, rugged boyfriend promised to marry her. No, even more than that, he has to drag his sick obsession with Palin vaginas into the pages of the New York Times.

What. An. Ass.

No wonder he draws a paycheck from the New York Times. He fits right in with their corporate culture.

MORE:

Palinists regard their star as an icon of working-class America even though the Palins’ combined reported income ($211,000) puts them in the top 3.6 percent of American households.

No, dipshit. Nobody regards the Palins as 'working class.' They are a middle to upper middle-class family. And it's not a matter of income, you ignorant cur. It's a matter of culture and shared values. And here's a whack on the head with a clue-bat: SARAH PALIN WAS NOT ALWAYS THE F---ING GOVERNOR OF ALASKA!!!!!

MORE:

Or that Rush Limbaugh held up a picture of Chelsea Clinton on television to identify the “White House dog.”

Did he?? Ok, Rich. I'm calling you and anyone who says that a liar. Rush Limbaugh himself "held up" a picture of Chelsea Clinton on television to identify the White House dog?

I'm calling that stupid bluff.

Show me the vid.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Alaska, class warfare, Limbaugh, Palin, Palin's Vagina

And suppose further that you were a Canadian citizen.

But I repeat myself.

Labels: Canada, dogs, Humor

Comedy gold.

Then again, if Obama's intent was to orchestrate a wholesale theft of wealth from the productive for the benefit of the connected, undermine the rule of law, and lay waste to best practices of accountability and transparency, while propping up key northern democrat constituencies while placing children tens of thousands of dollars in debt before they graduate fifth grade, then I guess he may be right.

Labels: Economics, economy, finance, Obama, stimulus

The Clintons complained about them when they held the highest office in the land.

If they were wrong then, then aren't they even more wrong when aimed at a private citizen?

Supporters of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor are quietly targeting the Connecticut firefighter who's at the center of Sotomayor's most controversial ruling.

On the eve of Sotomayor's Senate confirmation hearing, her advocates have been urging journalists to scrutinize what one called the "troubled and litigious work history" of firefighter Frank Ricci.

What a bunch of drooling jackals Democrats are.

Sotomayor can't stand on the merits, so they target a firefighter Sotomayor ruled against... and for which Sotomayor was smacked around by the Supreme Court.

Why? Because Ricci was right.

People for the American Way, which, by the way, has America-hating actor Alec Baldwin on its board of directors, has become a gang of character-assassin thugs.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: law, People for the American Way, Politics, Sotomayor, supreme court, The Left

It's no mystery to me why Palin resigned. She was right to resign. It was a no brainer. Had she not resigned, she would be doing irreparable financial harm to her family.

Here's why.

Sarah Palin and her husband have five children and one grandchild. All of them, with the possible exception of Track, who's in the Army, are going to need a lot of help. Bristol's a teenage mom who's baby-daddy is useless. Levi's parents aren't going to be much help. The burden of bringing up that child is going to fall mostly on the Palin family, and Bristol herself has exremely limited means. Piper is six or seven. Just starting school. her expensive teenage years ahead pf her, and she'll need a college fund. Bristol may need some help finishing her education.

Retirement? Palin will have a modest pension, but she hasn't spent THAT long as a State of Alaska employee. Todd? He's done ok, but with five children? He's gonna have to scramble to fund his own retirement on top of everything else.

But get this the minute they found out that Trig had Down Syndrome, the financial planning picture changes. Why? Because the Palins insurance needs changed radically.

Trig will likely never be able to work or live independently, and will be dependent upon assistance his whole life. The Palins are confronted with a number of simultaneous financial challenges:

1.) Meet the college/education needs of at least three children and one grandchild. (Track will have the GI Bill, and possibly an ROTC scholarship if he wants it, so he's less of a worry, though still may need some help when he gets out of the Army.

2.) Help Bristol with her own day-to-day expenses and those of her baby.

3.) Provide for the day-to-day needs of Trig, who's going to have some pretty serious special needs and will require more and more time and attention as he gets older and becomes self-propelled.

3.) Provide enough life insurance protection to provide for her family's substantial needs if she got on the wrong airplane or got shot by a rabid libtard.

And here's the rub: Many middle class families opt for cheap term insurance, on the theory that their need for life insurance goes down substantially when the kids are out of school and no longer dependent.

That is not the case here. In the Palin's case, Trig's need for life insurance protection doesn't end when he gets a college diploma and moves out on his own. His need is permanent. The Palins must, on their limited incomes, provide for everything above, AND provide enough money for an endowment to support Trig Palin... probably for decades.

Financial planning for children with special needs is a little different than planning for most families. And it takes quite a bit more cash flow to provide for them. Cash flow the Palin's don't have on a Governor's salary and Todd's pay.

If Palin didn't quit, they could get through the next couple of years in decent shape. But then their options would deteriorate sharply if Palin's star faded. At 48/49 years old, it would be extremely difficult to recover.

The Palins very likely need a substantial amount of permanent life insurance. Not term. Set aside for Trig. If they wanted to be equitable to all their children, they would need a lot more permanent insurance, as opposed to term.

It's a lot more expensive, in terms of cash flow and monthly required premium, to buy that insurance in her late 40s than it would have been if she were in her 20s or 30s. And there's not as much time to build it up, either. Had Palin tried to stick it out on the Governor's salary, it would have been almost impossible.

But quitting, and getting a book out there, and hitting the lecture/fundraiser circuit in the next few years, would allow her to do all that. She can take care of her family, provide a legacy for her other children, spend some time with the kids, create something that creates residual income (book royalties), and STILL have a shot at running for president or senator.

Most importantly, if she doesn't provide for Trig, her critics sure as hell won't. No one else can do it but her.

Maybe she didn't explain it too well. And maybe it's none of our business anyway. But in my view, she did the right thing.

Best of luck, Governor Palin and family.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Alsaska, Bristol, finance, money, Palin, special needs, The Left, Track, Trig

And so it goes ...

WASHINGTON — Pentagon health experts are urging Defense Secretary Robert Gates to ban the use of tobacco by troops and end its sale on military property, a change that could dramatically alter a culture intertwined with smoking.
Jack Smith, head of the Pentagon's office of clinical and program policy, says he will recommend that Gates adopt proposals by a federal study that cites rising tobacco use and higher costs for the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs as reasons for the ban.

The study by the Institute of Medicine, requested by the VA and Pentagon, calls for a phased-in ban over a period of years, perhaps up to 20. "We'll certainly be taking that recommendation forward," Smith says.

A tobacco ban would confront a military culture, the report says, in which "the image of the battle-weary soldier in fatigues and helmet, fighting for his country, has frequently included his lit cigarette."

Also, the report said, troops worn out by repeated deployments often rely on cigarettes as a "stress reliever." The study found that tobacco use in the military increased after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan began.

The story goes on to note that combat troops smoke more than noncombat troops. I don't think they get the correlations right, though. Combat MOS's have higher proportions of southern and rural white guys... who are also vastly more likely to use snuff and chewing tobacco, as well as smoke. I'm not sure how strictly the reporter is able to draw the distinction, nor am I sure if the suggested ban also targets chewing tobacco.

Now, why might a combat soldier chew tobacco? One reason is because it's REALLY hard to fall asleep with a wad of tobacco in your mouth. So guys on sentry duty use it in lieu of uppers. Or in lieu of just falling asleep. I don't think anyone who hasn't been there can really understand how HARD it is to maintain absolute silence, in the prone position, behind your weapon, at 3am after a full day of marching and fighting. Soldiers and marines grab every edge they can.

Further, I wouldn't disregard the role of cigarrettes on the battlefield - especially the countergeurrilla battlefield. From a humint or interrogater's point of view, or simply from the perspective of a local leader trying to build a relationship with an Iraqi or Afghan, the simple act of offering a nicotine-starved Iraqi a quality American cigarette, and lighting one up one's self, is a time-honored way of establishing a rapport with a local or detainee - and is frequently the first and necessary step in breaking the ice and gaining the trust and cooperation of a local or detainee.

Honestly, we wouldn't get NEAR the HUMINT we do without it. Verily I say unto you... if tobacco were to vanish from U.S. soldiers' kits tomorrow, there would be an almost immediate and bloody, but nearly untraceable consequence on the ground. It would significantly degrade our relationship with locals and our ability to gain intelligence from detainees and HUMINT sources. Tread VERY SLOWLY here.

Finally, tobacco sales also count towards the morale, welfare and recreation budget of the post. If we eliminate tobacco sales from post, that's that much less money available to support MWR for our military service members and their families. Will it be made up somewhere?

Honestly, I have a real problem with any rear echelon pogue declaring, by edict, that one of my guys -- Grown men, all of them, even the kids -- coming back in wired and jumpy from a tough patrol or convoy can't take a few minutes to light one up and unwind. An infantryman in a combat zone? He might well be dead by nightfall. You took him away from his wife and/or girlfriend. He can't drink alcohol. I think we should allow him the luxury of a smoke if he needs it.

I think we should discourage smoking, sure. But an outright ban? Must be liberals invading the Pentagon.

At any rate, this is one of those things that if it's to be done, Obama should lead by example. He can't quit smoking. Yeah, he's got a stressful job. He's not the only one.

Splash, out

Jason

UPDATE: I suspect Jolly Rancher is behind this.

Labels: Army, Marines, soldier's issues, stupid

David Letterman Resigns to Spend More Time Raping Family ...

Citing Mounting Health Care Costs, Pentagon To Ban Combat ...

First Lady To Lead Campaign To Fight Musical Illiteracy Among Guitarists ...
"Hopeless ..."

Palin Paints Cannibalism Rumors as "Exaggerated."

Developing ...

Labels: Countercolumn News Ticker

It is a long standing and necessary judicial principle that the primary finders of fact in a court case are the judges and members of the jury who actually observe the testimony of witnesses and their demeanor in the court room.

When cases are appealed, they are ALWAYS appealed on the basis of law, not fact. The courts defer to the judgment of those actually present to witness testimony. Appellate judges only rule on whether the lower courts applied the law correctly to the facts AS DETERMINED BY THE JURY IN THE INITIAL CASE.

This is an absolutely vital precept of law. Without it, there can be no respect for stare decisis, because every case must be decided entirely anew. Facts reweighed, witnesses reassessed.

Naturally, any judge nominated by any president can be expected to grasp this fundamental precept of jurisprudence.

Well, any president other than this one, that is.

Giminy Christmas!

Splash, out

Jason

Do straight women make the best lesbian porn?

Labels: culture, Gay/Lesbian issues, Paglia, Sex

This time the Boston Globe, being led around by the Huffpo/Paul Reikhoff press operation, hits on the 'women homeless vets' angle.

Let's take a look:

The number of female service members who have become homeless after leaving the military has jumped dramatically in recent years, according to new government estimates, presenting the Veterans Administration with a challenge as it struggles to accommodate the hundreds of thousands of returning veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

As more women serve in combat zones, the share of female veterans who end up homeless, while still relatively small at an estimated 6,500, has nearly doubled over the last decade, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

For younger veterans, it is even more pronounced: One out of every 10 homeless vets under the age of 45 is now a woman, the statistics show.

Well, women make up 9% of homeless veterans under 45. But they make up 15% of the military. So the real story is that women are vastly underrepresented among the ranks of the homeless. But that doesn't make for a sexy, sensational headline that homeless advocacy groups can leverage into increasing funding.

The trend has alarmed top lawmakers and veterans groups, who fear that the federal government - which is already straining to care for new veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injuries, and other physical ailments - is ill-prepared to deal with the special needs of female veterans who find themselves on the street.

What special needs? I think they'd have the same special needs as male homeless vets. They may be more likely to have children with them, but I don't see anything quantifying that, other than Riekhoff's assertion (though IAVA's backgrounder says that 23% of homeless women in the VA's programs have children. This does not mean that the children are homeless, though.)

Many of them are like Angela Peacock, a former Army sergeant who was diagnosed with PTSD when she returned from Iraq in 2004 and became addicted to pain-killers.

If there are so many thousands of homeless women veterans, why is it the Globe couldn't find anyone except Peacock, who, coincidentally, has already been featured in a documentary, and been the subject of an extensive writeup in the Huffington Post.

Incidentally, Paul Rieckhoff, the director of the nonpartisan group Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, also keeps a blog on the Huffington Post.

Because that's what "nonpartisans" do. Keep blogs on Huffington Post.

Moreover, most homeless vets... apparently about 130,000 on any given night, if the figures in the story are to be believed, are men over the age of 45. (My own belief is that a large number of these homeless vets are liars).

I'm not pooh-poohing Peacock's experiences. Nor belittling the plight faced by female veterans undergoing a tough time. Just noting that the same people seem to show up in newspapers quite a bit. It's as if IAVA hands out Peacock's phone number with its press releases and backgrounders.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Angela Peacock, Army, Paul Rieckoff, soldiers' issues, The Left, The media, veterans

A wonderful lesson from a master.

(Scroll down and click the video link)

Labels: fiddle blogging, Music

The increasingly unhinged Matt Yglesias is at it again, this time leveling his sights on those evil Jew neocons, spreading their wicked ideologies like a cancer on the body politic.

It’s actually true that neocon bashing is a bit on the tiresome side. That said, I think it really has to be understood as a vital social necessity. Adherents of a deranged and sociopoathic “neocon” conception of America’s role in the world continue to be tremendously influential in our society. They have columns at The Washington Post and dominate the foreign policy coverage on Fox News. They have The Weekly Standard and Commentary and a healthy slice of The New Republic. And most important, as best as anyone can tell their ideas remain utterly dominant in the Republican Party.

The JOOOOOS! The JOOOOOOOOS are infesting our media!

Seriously, Matt. Sociopathic?? I'm not sure just how many layers of arrogance and idiocy to peel back, here. But let's start by saying that both the terms neoconservative and sociopathic have meanings. And Matt clearly has a twisted, lazy-man libtard idea of both of those definitions.

There is simply no way on earth that neoconservatism can be expressed or labeled sociopathological. None.

Look:

From Dictionary.com:

–noun Psychiatry.
a person, as a psychopathic personality, whose behavior is antisocial and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience.

Neoconservative:

–noun
moderate political conservatism espoused or advocated by former liberals or socialist

s.

Ok, I guess there may be some pathology imported from libtards and socialists. But that's an unsatisfying definition. In order to be a meaningful geopolitical model, neoconservatism must have a definition beyond that of describing the former persuasions of its adherents. I submit this definition from Wikipedia:

Neoconservatism is a political philosophy that emerged in the United States of America, and which supports using American economic and military power to bring liberalism, democracy, and human rights to other countries.

Close enough to be useful. And clearly, as far as batshit-whacked libtards are concerned, there is nothing more clearly sociopathological, nothing that bespeaks the lack of a moral compass or sense of social responsibility, then the belief that the US should spread liberalism, democracy, and respect for human rights to the rest of the world. JFK was clearly, as far as Yglesias must be concerned, a sociopath.

Yglesias lets the mask slip: Sure, you can make a case that neoconservatism is misguided, that it doesn't work in practice, that those swarthy brown little sub-human ragheads overseas are not ready for democracy and they will only devolve into a howling mob of Israel-hating, genocidal whackjobs. I don't believe any of those things are necessarily true, but one could build and argue a respectful and rational case for them.

But the ONLY way anyone could seriously assert that neoconservatism is pathological is if they actually hated Western values.

Yglesias has already demonstrated himself so full of shit he can't draw a distinction between the Bush White House and the inhuman, brutal, murderous thugocracy in power in North Korea.


Splash, out

Jason

EDIT: I should note that I do think there have been true sociopaths in public life. William Ayers would be one example. Marion Barry.

Unlike Yglesias, I know what words mean, I don't throw words around lightly, and I don't use specific diagnoses as a political club without understanding the term.

Back in my reporting days, there would be no way I could get away with that garbage. Because I had real editors who cared about the truth. (That's you, Adam, Maggie, and John!). I don't know who the adult supervision is at The Atlantic, but I'd get pretty tired of lazy-assed hatchet men like Sullivan and Yglesias screwing up my brand pretty fast.

This guy needs an editor.

Labels: bloggers, foreign policy, The media, Yglesias

Governor Palin Resigns to Spend More Time With Her Shotgun ...

Obama Celebrates Independence Day By Visiting Moscow ...
..American Troops Breath Sigh of Relief ...

Maureen Dowd Holes Self Up in Hamptons Beach House, Watching "Heathers" Obsessively, Say Friends ...
Wanders NY Times Halls, Muttering "That Breeder Hag."
Accuses Palin of Neurosis

Obama Presses Detroit for Technology to Make Fuel out of Soldiers' Blood ...

Like new iPhone, White House Turns Pink When Under Stress ...

Buffett Directs WaPo Publishers Turning Tricks in DC Streets to Raise Cash ...
..Reporters reportedly thrilled at promotion, status increase ...
Profile: The Lot Lizards of L Street ...

Holocaust Museum Officials To Create Display out of Recent Vandalism ...


Developing ...

Labels: Countercolumn News Ticker, Humor

Marcus at JustBarkingMad continues his look at the doctrinal underpinnings of the new ROE in Afghanistan here, building on this post here, but has not, as yet, provided anything approaching a useful suggestion to the platoon leader on the ground faced with contact from an Afghan house or village.

Herschel Smith gets much the better of the argument, in my opinion.

Try as I might, and having given Marcus two extensive posts to defend his position, the new ROE just doesn't seem to me to pass the 'boots-on-the-ground' test. I think his position is complicated by the fact that if ANY guidance is so complicated to express that it takes more than two full blog posts on JustBarkingMad to spell out, it will NOT pass the boots-on-the-ground test, by definition.

Here's my guidance:

Find the enemy. Cut him off. Pursue him. Fix him. Close with him. Kill him.

If Afghan forces are capable of conduction the last two, AND are at hand, then let them take the lead, by all means. But if they are not? Then go after the Taliban and kill them where they are.

It ain't rocket science. The time to get all fucking involved and kissy-faced with the tribal elders and get your panties all in a wad over civil affairs issues is BEFORE the moojies open up on you from the house on the corner. NOT during the fucking firefight.

Jus in bello concerns about proportionality and the economy of force principle of war still apply.

Marcus says "this shit is chess, not checkers."

No. This shit ain't chess. This shit is war.

Let me take it a bit further. I'm reminded of a joke at the end of the movie Colors. There's two bulls up on a hill, looking at a herd of cows. The young bull says to the old bull, "Hey, pop! Let's run down the hill and fuck one of them cows!" The papa bull says to the young bull, "No, son. Let's walk down... and fuck them all!"

Well, guess what. Just because COIN doctrine says you WALK down the hill instead of RUN down the hill doesn't mean that when you get down the hill you don't fuck the cows. YOU STILL FUCK THE COWS!!!!

Do I need to explain further?

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Afghanistan, bloggers, soldiers' issues, Warfighting

From the A.P.

BEAUMONT — Relatives of a slain sailor are calling the 29-year-old’s death a hate crime.
Rose Roy of Beaumont said her nephew, Navy Seaman August Provost III, had complained a year before about being harassed for being gay.
Roy said she advised Provost to report and document the incidents, but she said the military did little to help.
“He went to the Navy to serve and protect,” she said in an interview with Beaumont’s KFDM News, “he didn’t get protected at all.”
Roy told The Associated Press that the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy discouraged her nephew from asking for help.

What did I tell you? What the fuck did I tell you five years ago? Yeah, I called it. And for calling it exactly like it was, I got accused, at the time, of penning "homophobic rant."*

At any rate, the conclusion that the DADT policy is to blame is utter hogwash. That's not the military's policy that discouraged her nephew from asking for help. It is the UCMJ, which is the law of the land. The military has zero choice in the matter, and absent a change in the law, approved by Congress, Provost would have been in the exact same predicament had DADT never been enacted.

I get pretty tired of dumbass reporters getting led around by their noses.

The 29-year-old Houston native was found dead Tuesday at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, north of San Diego. Roy said the family was told that Provost was shot three times, had his hands and feet bound, his mouth gagged, and body burned.

Just terrible. But that problem is a hell of a lot bigger than DADT. Indeed, had the military still had a blanket ban on gays serving, August Provost would probably still be alive today.

Democratic Rep. Bob Filner of San Diego said Thursday he wants a Defense Department investigation into the death, after leaders of the city’s gay community asked him to intervene.
Investigators have called the sailor’s death a random act unrelated to his sexuality and have taken a “person of interest” into custody. Inside sources describe possible suspects as a construction worker, a police officer, a cowboy, and an Indian chief. No charges have been filed.

I'm taking some liberties with the last part.

Incidentally, although the Navy Department has long had a 'witch-hunt' culture, to my eye, there is no reason why a commander needs to take a complaint over sexual harrassment as an admission of homosexuality, leading to a discharge. It is entirely possible to investigate the harrassment without looking into homosexual conduct itself.

I haven't been directly confronted with the issue. I've had troops who I'm reasonably sure were gay, but I didn't care, had no reason to look into it, had other things to worry about, and it wasn't a problem in the unit. I suppose had I heard the first rumblings of any kind of harrassment problem, I could have let the word out through my First Sergeant that I would not condone or permit a hostile work environment for ANY reason, and that furthermore I would consider any male on male harrassment of any soldier on the basis of homosexuality to be a tacet admission of homosexual interest on the part of the harrasser, and simply proceed with discharge papers.

**See also this reaction by Bill Cameron

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Army, culture, gays, law, Politics, soldiers' issues, The media, UCMJ

I knew he was popular overseas, but I didn't know it went this far.

The poor darlings.

Labels: Humor, Michael Jackson

Sarah Palin Declares Independence from Job as Home-Based Multi-Level Marketing Business Really Takes Off ...

Michael Jackson's Appearance Gradually Improving, Say Doctors ...

New York Times To Run WaPo Scandal On Front Page for 46 Days Straight ...
Aims to match Abu Ghraib Record ...

As Afghan Poppy Fields Burn, Battle Takes Mellow, Lethargic Turn ...
Commanding General Does a Stately Pleasure Dome Decree ...

Palin's Vagina Announces Run for Senate ...




Impacting ...

Labels: Countercolumn News Ticker, Humor, News Ticker, Palin

Michael Jackson were Irish?

Labels: dance, Humor, Ireland, Michael Jackson

And who is getting IOUs?

Hint: Public employee pensions are getting cash. The legislators are paying themselves cash.

The mentally handicapped? IOUs.


Bastards.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: California, economy, finance, mental health, Politics, taxes

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!

To quote a line from Animal House: "You fucked up! You trusted me!"

Labels: culture, gays, Obama, Politics

Labels: Hitler, Humor, Michael Jackson, parody

"If I've lost Helen Thomas, I've lost Dingbat-America."

Labels: health care, Helen Thomas, Obama, Politics, The media

The award for best use of the major seventh interval in a pop song goes to:

Harriet Wheeler, The Sundays. Here's Where the Story Ends.



Honorable mention: The cool melodic variations in the third verse. This girl had it.

Splash, out

Jason

Labels: Countercolumn Trivial Music Awards, Music, the Arts

Andrew Sullivan continues his demented obsession over Sarah Palin's vagina.

Labels: Palin, Palin's Vagina, Sullivan, The media