War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
The latest yesterday in grand ‘Support the Troops’ style: The U.S. Army said Wednesday that 7,000 family members of soldiers killed in the Iraq or Afghan wars mistakenly were sent letters addressing them as “John Doe.” Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey, Jr., was sending a personal letter to all the families who…
One major gripe I’ve got against the New York Times‘ Frank Rich: He doesn’t publish enough. Rich weaves theater into politics and for the most part, at least this past year, has threaded together the best observations on the DC goings-on — He continually nails Decider George. This evening another good, insightful ditty, commenting the…
No one seems to be paying much attention to the warmth. In this second day of a new year, the biggest problem facing the US — and the world — is not the financial meltdown, not Gaza, and not President-Elect Obama’s abs, but the weather. And it ain’t getting any better. Climate change is like…
As one of the most-bizarre and just-plain-weird years comes to a close and a new 12-month cycle just cranks off, I’ve gotten this really-bad feeling about Decider George and all the horrible, immoral, illegal shit he’s done — he’ll just ride off into the sunset scot-ass free. That’s just so wrong. (Illustration found here). The…
Interview of Seymour Hersh by Arabic daily, Asharq Al-Awsat, via AlterNet: I really believe something happened to America; after 9/11 we became a different country. That is fine, presidents sometimes might want to do that, but my issue is how did Bush do it? How did he beat the press? How did he beat the…
Life as we know it is coming to a quick, sure end. A story this morning is disturbing: So burn this into your mind: between 2007 and 2008 the IEA (International Energy Agency) radically changed its assessment. Until this year’s report, the agency mocked people who said that oil supplies might peak. In the foreword…
A war that just keeps on giving, and in lieu of current events, now the shoe could be on the other foot. Five years ago, Decider George blubbered bring ’em on like his ass was actually on the line — a big mouth that killed a lot of people. Now Mullah Omar and his Taliban…
Bloomberg reported Friday a certain Turkish shoe is flying off the shelf (h/t TPM): Baydan has received orders for 300,000 pairs of the shoes since the attack, more than four times the number his company sold each year since the model was introduced in 1999. … “We’ve been selling these shoes for years but, thanks…
During the daily US State Department press briefing Thursday, Sean McCormack said the infamous shoe-throwing incident last weekend will be eclipsed by other more-important shit 50 years from now. An image, though, for pure foolish failure: A shoe-gram for the last eight years. (Illustration found here). Also a pure snapshot of twisted, historical logic. (h/t:…
Another observation from the UK’s Patrick Cockburn on last weekend’s shoe-throwing-at-Decider George incident and how these press conferences, media glad-handing photo ops can be highly misleading. Even with all the Iraqi public support for the shoe bomber. I used to comfort myself with the thought that these official visits did little harm even if they…