Friday Crab Blogging

The Little Scottie Gambit II

I told you so:

Heaphy said Fordham had been asked not to comment publicly on the substance of the inquiry because of the continuing investigation.(my emphasis)

How much you want to bet this "investigation" lasts until November 8?

Get Ready

Just a comma

CLICK TO ENLARGE

(Data from Iraq here, and here; data from 9/11 here)

10,000, 100,000, 645,000, What's a few more deaths?

George W. Bush is not an old man. Some day in the not too distant future he is going to have to explain to these children why they had to suffer and all their parents and uncles and grandparents and friends had to die.

Where's the airplane?

While browsing around, as I am sure all of us do, I ran across this picture taken on Sept 14, 2001 of the Pentagon. Where's the airplane?


Remember, it was fully loaded with jet fuel. To give you some sense of the size:







There are over 150 eye witness accounts describing the plane that hit the Pentagon.

From here:

(the picture) shows the facade of the Pentagon after the attack but before a section of it collapsed. It was taken at time when the fire truck on the left had stopped spraying foam at the damage, thus giving us a reasonably clear view of the building's facade at the point of impact, which is indicated by the arrow. Reels of electrical cable (this section of the Pentagon was being renovated at the time) lie undamaged and largely undisturbed immediately in front of the impact point.

Clearly a Boeing passenger jet travelling at over 450 mph has not penetrated the building at this point. There is no scar or entry hole that could possibly support this scenario. Neither is there any wreckage to be seen in front of the building. Precious little wreckage was found inside the building either. The plane — or whatever it was that hit the Pentagon — seems to have vaporized prior to impact and vanished into thin air. Planes are not generally believed able to do this.

A moment before the impact, a suitably placed observer at the scene should have seen something like this, a to-scale simulation of a Boeing 757 about to strike the Pentagon:

Pretty interestng.

Wait a minute! Wait a minute!

There is a real good chance that the "nuclear explosion" that NoK has been bragging about was really an unimpressive Dud. First of all, how big is "BIG?" Well, let's compare it to the WTC and the Oklahoma bombing:

Despite shocks and explosions estimated to be equivalent to that of the 1995 truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (about 400 tons of TNT), the towers remained upright.

OK, got that, a Ryder truck with fertilizer. (The tragedy of the Twin Towers is that the fire from the burning jet fuel burned out their support causing them to fall. It wasn't necessarily the explosion.) Now to the wonks:

Estimating the yield (of the NoK "cave bomb" - DrC) is tricky business, because it depends on the geology of the test site. The South Koreans called the yield half a kiloton (550 tons),

So, just to put this in perspective, the NoK's set off a big firecracker and everyone rushs to the conclusion that they're a nuclear power. Don't you think it should have been at least 20 kilotons (20 to 40 times what it was) to even get in the peanut gallery of the Nuclear Club?

Of course the political implications are vast. It distracts from the implosion of Denny and the Repugs, it makes everyone go crying to the U.N. to do something, and it strengthens the Bushite desire to BOMB IRAN. Not good.

Anyway, not so fast King Jong.

Foleygate, the little Scottie Gambit

I've been waiting and waiting for it. I knew it was going to come, and it did:

When TPM called up Fordham's lawyer Timothy Heaphy about this, he declined to confirm that Palmer had said he'd spoken to the Speaker about it, citing the ongoing investigations.

It is amazing what a damper these words can put on finding out what really went on behind closed congressional doors. I guarantee you it will get the Republicans through the election without further damage. Just say "citing the ongoing investigations." I'm surprised it hadn't been used sooner.

Where is the Intelligence?

Why didn't the United States Intelligence community (CIA, and all the others) who were so sure about Saddam Hussein having a nuclear weapon and other WMD, not know that North Korea was going to test their baby.

President George W Bush said the US was working to confirm the claim, which he branded a "provocative" act.

He said he and regional leaders agreed North Korea's actions were unacceptable and deserved an immediate response from the United Nations Security Council.

Security Council members are meeting in New York to discuss their reaction.

Could it be that Iraq (and now Iran) threatens Israel whereas North Korea only threatens Japan and South Korea and, of course, those libruls on the West Coast?

Fool me once....

I can't help thinking, along with Glenn Greenwald, that the scandal concerning Representative Foley is just too damaging to the Republican Party to be true. There has to be something else going on in the background. Why would the ultimate, Machiavellian operative, Karl Rove, have ever let anything like this happen? Could it possibly be true that he was so busy spying and concocting smears on the Democrats that he forgot to look around his own back yard? No, I just can't believe it. There must be a subtext.

Now there is an advantage to letting this thing run into the ground. It distracts from the very real issues that face the Nation. Arguably, this is the most crucial juncture in our history, even more so than the Civil War. Having the voters worrying about sex, even predator sex, is preferable to their focusing on the unmitigated disasters of Iraq, torture and the dismantling of our Constitution.

And there is always Bush's desire to really distract by bombing Iran. The only thing there is that North Korea is going to test a bomb and Iran doesn't have one yet. But that never fazed dunder head.

Think about this for a minute

Iran option

A former Navy intelligence officer weighs in on how the world will stop Iran from building nuclear bombs:

"I really believe the Israelis are going to strike [Iran's] several uranium processing factories soon. They cannot survive a first strike. This time, unlike when they sent eight F-16s to destroy the Iraqi reactor Osirak, I think they will use the Jericho missiles and the submarine-launched, nuclear-tipped Tomahawks to do nuclear strikes. Most of the factories are 150 meters underground and too deep for bunker busters." (emphasis added)

A long, long minute.

Limbo in Limbo?

One of the few really cool things about the Catholic Church is being relegated to, well, oblivian (how tempting was it to write the l... word there):

Pope Benedict XVI could announce as early as today that the Catholic Church is abandoning the ancient concept of limbo, a way station for babies barred from heaven because they were not baptized, according to unconfirmed reports circulating Thursday in Europe and elsewhere.

Excuse me. Excuse me. It wasn't a waystation by any stretch. It was for eternity.

I think I always suspected this:

... limbo can be traced to a 13th-Century attempt to reconcile two different concepts from the Bible and ancient writings: that people must be baptized to be saved and that God wants all people to be saved. The solution was to place the unbaptized in limbo, a place of joy and peace -- but not quite heaven. (emphasis mine)

Why, that's West Virginia, isn't it?


Almost Heaven, almost.


Made a million bucks singing about Limbo.

Actually, the Catholic Church has no idea what a floodgate they are opening. If unbaptized babies can make it into heaven (though I might perfer the peace and quiet of limbo to the hullabaloo of heaven with its Seraphins and assorted choirs), then anybody can make it into heaven.

And that anybody includes muslims, jews, hindus and, yes Virginia, even Democrats!

Friday Crab Blogging

Friends?

Who needs enemies when you got Republicans for friends?

Its not over

Its not over 'till the fat man sings.


Even if you have to use "aggressive interrogation."

The Plain People of America

It sounds like the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating at a rather astounding rate. In fact, Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, even ventured the idea that the Taliban (!) could be brought into the government there.

The Plain People of America: We thought the Taliban were turrists?

Well, there are good terrorists and bad terrorists. If the Taliban will just cooperate and let us build a pipeline across Afghanistan, then they will be good terrorists.

The Plain People of America: Oh.

Now we have the spectacle of the Republican leadership in the House or Representatives engaged in a cat fight over who knew Representative Foley was boinking interns.

The Plain People of America: Would that include that guy Clinton?

No, actually, this is with underage boys.

The Plain People of America: You mean like that T.V. show Big Love?

No, you idiot, that's polygamy.

The Plain People of America: Anyway, that guy Clinton was something else. I'd vote for him in a heartbeat.

Yes, well lets move on. There is a lot of evidence that the President is getting ready to use nuclear weapons against Iran.

The Plain People of America: Yea, man! Nuke em!

But that might mean the price of gasoline will go to six dollars a gallon.

The Plain People of America: Oh. Can we take that back?

But, it probably doesn't make a difference since half of America will probably be under water in 25 years.

The Plain People of America: You mean like the Interstates too?

Especially the Interstates. Have you ever poled a barge?

Surprise!.

Its October!

King Jong II (sort of like King Bush II)

Grimm Harry

JHC, what's this country coming to? We think nothing of torturing prisoners, and they want to ban Harry Potter?

State board will hear woman's objections to Harry Potter

In Harry Potter's world, the Ministry of Magic governs things. In Georgia, the state Board of Education rules over public schools.

These two worlds come together Tuesday when the state board has a public hearing on a parent's request to remove the popular series from Gwinnett County public school libraries. The hearing officer presiding over the appeal will make a recommendation to the state board, which is scheduled to rule on the case during its December meeting.

The problem here is education. Anyone with a modicumm of that civilized embellishment knows that classic "fairy" tales are exceedingly violent with many subthemes of patricide, infanticide, incest and even beastiality (Red Riding Hood). (Oh, and they don't contain fairies, though the anti-gay yokels would probably ban them if they did.)

Harry Potter, by comparison, is tame. There's a good PhD thesis in sociology awaiting someone comparing the world of Harry Potter with that of the Brothers Grimm.


What is the problem with Harry, you might ask. Well:

Loganville parent, challenges the books in September 2005, saying the stories promote and glorify witchcraft.(emphasis added)

Witchcraft? You remember the last time the Puritans got involved in witches.


The bad people here aren't the supposed "witches," the bad people are the loonies that thought witches actually exist.

Arthur Miller (when he wasn't dallying with Marilyn Monroe) wrote "The Crucible" about it in 1952:

The Crucible is a play that was written by Arthur Miller in 1952. It is based on the events surrounding the 1692 witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts. Miller wrote about the event as an allegory for McCarthyism and the Red Scare, which occurred in the United States in the 1950s. (emphasis added)

Sound familiar? Substitue "terrorism" for the "Red Scare" and you have perfect continuity. Salem to McCarthy to Bush and his believers. It all hangs together.

Baghdad, PA

Seven other victims were taken to hospitals. Most were badly wounded; most had been shot, execution-style, at point-blank range, after being lined up along the chalkboard, their feet bound with wire and plastic ties, authorities said.

BAGHDAD - A total of 50 bodies were recovered by Baghdad police in various parts of the city over the 24 hours to Sunday evening, an Interior Ministry official said. Many had been tortured and most were bound and shot in the head. . .

You see, once torture gets started, it metastasizes. I becomes, for lack of a better word, accepted.

Damn these people.

Riding with the Turnips

Is "riding with the turnips" like "swimming with the fishes?"

The United States of ADD

AD(H)D, attention deficit (hyperactivity) disorder, is ubiquitous amongst our children. (It is actually not a disorder, it is just the upper tail of the normal, bell curve of behavior. The problems, is that schools make the cutoff pretty high on the shoulder and those that are above don't survive. But, that is not what I want to discuss.) It is my opinion that we nationally suffer from ADD. This is a corollary of the complexity issue discussed below. Americans don't seem to be able to keep anything in their brain for very long except Bill Clinton's sexual peccadilloes. Consider

It has been 230 years since the Declaration of Independence

It has been 4 days since Congress voted to torture prisoners

The Iraq "War" has lasted for 1292 days

Palestinians have been stateless for 58 years

It has been 82 days since Israel invaded Lebanon, again

And we have 841 days until George W. Bush is dethroned (or less)

Oh, and the Redskins play Dallas again in 34 days

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Which one does America remember?