Give the Army Points for Thinking Outside the Box

As Chimpie hints at a "surge and accelerate" strategy of sending perhaps 20,000 more US military personnel into Iraq, people like General Barry MacCaffery have been asking where the hell they're going to find more combat-trained GIs when the ones we have are already pulling multiple tours. Hell, he even has mentioned that non-combat-trained sailors and airmen (and that means non-combat-trained weenies like yours truly--see A Christmas Story for my terrifying war experience) are being sent on search-and-destroy patrols, which shows that the military is already stretched to its limits.

“You’ve got a foreign policy, a national security policy in Washington and they’re not resourced to carry it out,” said McCaffrey, who called for an increase of 80,000 soldiers and 25,000 Marines in each service. “The country is not at war. The United States armed forces and the CIA are at war. So we are asking our military to sustain a level of effort that we have not resourced,” he told Army Times.

“That’s how to break the Army is to keep it deployed above the rate at which it can be sustained,” he said. “There’s no free lunch here. The Army and the Marine Corps and Special Operations Command are too small and badly resourced to carry out this national security strategy.”

But the Army has hit upon an idea that I believe is a first in military history: encourage dead soldiers to return to service.

Just wait until Chimpie gets wind of this. "Yeah, that's it. A zombie army! Don't you have to shoot 'em in the head to stop 'em? Yeah, that's it! I saw that in Night of the Living Dead at the frat house. Yeah. A zombie army! Get Bob Gates in here pronto. I gotta tell him about this!"

Going Down Like Pacino in Scarface

Rent, borrow, or buy Brian De Palma's Scarface (1983). Fast forward (or select the scene, if you have DVD) to the point where Pacino says, "Say hello to my little friend." Past Chimpie's face over Pacino's.

Is that how they'll have to get this idiot out of the White House?

Actually, you need only fast forward as far Pacino's face coming up out of the mountain of cocaine on his desk, powder encrusted on this nostrils. Is that what's going on in there in the WH? Is this just coke-addled craziness and obstinancy?

I just had to post this--I keep seeing that scene in my head every time I hear anything about the war or civil liberties. We've got a madman trying desperately to hold power. He has no respect for the law or the country or its people. Clinically speaking, it's a case of malignant narcissism.

And it's going to be ugly.

Proof of Delusion, part Deux

Chimpie is further out of touch with reality than even I, Olaf, could imagine. He now claims the right to open your mail without a court order, doing so even after the new House and Senate were elected, as if just daring them to impeach his dumb ass.

And by gum, they'd better do it now, or we are going to see a constitutional crisis beyond any in our history. This is a man who is either totally living in a fantasy world in which he gets to play dictator, or he is so bent on retaining power that he will stop at nothing--not even the destruction of his daddy's reputation (not much, I'll agree)--including a suspension of the Bill of Rights.

I don't give a fuck for bipartisanship or the Dems or any of them in the Congress at all if they don't realize now that they have a duty to pry this maniac out of office, indict him for war crimes, and let justice prevail.

Proof of Delusion

Does Olaf have good timing or what (referring to last night's post)? On the news this morning,

Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a "mass killing" late in 2007.

It's bad enough that allegedly "serious" news outlets like the AP and CNN give this idiot coverage, but they try to justify it in the following chickenshit way:

Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat.

God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

Note that they slip in "he claims" as though that rationalizes reporting the ravings of a lunatic. So let's apply a little trick that Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation suggests--insert the words "through his electric toothbrush" after "God said" or other similar utterances. Does that make it sound nutty? Then why does someone claiming that God speaks to him not sound nutty just because he doesn't specify the medium, particularly when God is allegedly speaking in particular dates, places, and numbers, as Robertson babbles.

I mean, if the AP and CNN want to quote Robertson, would it violate journalistic objectivity to refer to him as a religious fantasist (which is charitable at best) or ranting crazy fucker you'd best avoid?

I guess that's why I never made it as a journalist.

Do You Wonder How Bush Has Any Support? Here's One Reason.

First, please go and read Cenk Uygur's article on Smirking Chimp. I did, and so was inspired to visit our pals over at Rapture Ready to see where the old rapture index was pegged to, and damned if it isn't at a five-year high! At 163 it is now eighteen points above the "Fasten Your Seatbelts" trigger of 145, which while still nowhere near the all-time high of 182 might inspire that 25% who are predicting Jesus' return to earth this calender year.

Is anyone taking bets on this? Any gamblers out there? What are the odds in Vegas?

I'm sure most people have forgotten the Heaven's Gate cult, which committed collective suicide in preparation for an alien ship arriving in the shadow of the comet Hale-Bopp in 1997. Of course, they were nuts, right? The Rapture is different than their beliefs, right? It's based in undeniable truth recorded in a book with, yes, doubtful authorships and, okay, as interpreted by certain interpretations of said book by a smattering of Christian sects, but it would be heretical for me to equate such belief with that of a "UFO religion," right?

So what are the odds on Jesus' return this year? And does anyone know what the odds were on the Hale Bopp shadow ship coming down to scoop up Marshall Applewhite and friends? And if you think that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and James Dobson are real men of faith, keep in mind that Applewhite had his own nuts cut off as proof of his sincerity. Any rapture-predicters out there planning on similar dedications of earthly flesh?

Sorry about all the rhetorical questions. I'm just trying to help keep the debate open, that's all.

So who are those remaining deadenders who think Chimpie is doing a terrific job?

I think I have some idea.

The Little Creep

So Chimpie can now say to Bush Sr., "Nyah! Nyah! Nyah! I got Saddam and you didn't."

His Oedipal dream is finally realized. Now he gets to fuck Mommy.

The price? 3000 American lives, a few hundred thousand Iraqis, some Brits, Latvians, Poles, Italians...

I'm going to go vomit for a while.

New Year's Eve--No Resolutions

This next year has got to be an improvement over 2006, unless the melting ice shelf phenomenon accelerates and we see an increase in sea level of twenty or thirty feet, which is going to really suck for New Orleans and Bangladesh, among other locations. Glad I'm at 7000 feet.

We enter 2007 with one less malignant narcissist now that Saddam has had his neck snapped, but I would really like to see 2007 designated as The Year of the Eradication of War Criminals. You can name your own favorite candidates. Mine is Henry Kissinger, closely followed by the members of a certain cabal who have been consulting with Kriminal Kissinger during this last year. You must be aware of those names by now if you are even an irregular reader.

In general, I would predict more violence in Iraq (a slam-dunk prediction, as George Tenet might have said, but this one truly is a slam dunk), more idiocy in public policy from the executive branch, more lily-livered cowardice from the Democratically controlled Congress, more concentration of wealth. The good news is that secular sensible Americans are going to be making their voices louder--we will see the demise of the influence of the religious right, who will be collared together with Islamic fanatics who also seek fantasy-dwellers as leaders and fairy tailes as truth. God won't be declared dead, but he will return to private, closeted worship, as harmless as any other superstitious practices like tossing salt over one's shoulder after knocking over the shaker. (Yes, I still do this. But I don't cry heresy and eternal damnation against anyone who doesn't--those persons will see soon enough why it's bad luck to fail in this minor action. Don't believe me? Knock over the salt shaker at lunch and just walk away. Make me your beneficiary first.)

More specifically, I think Fidel Castro will still be around this time next year and until at least January 20, 2009, so that he can claim to have outlasted yet another American president. Segolene Royal, on whom I have a total crush, will be the next president of France, and the phenomenon of the two largest economies in continental Europe headed by women (Germany's chancellor is Angela Merkel) will at last erase prejudice in this country against women as heads of state. Unless, that is, Nancy Pelosi ends up presiding over a House that remains nearly as corrupt as it was under the Hastert/Delay regime and/or Hillary Clinton continues to compromise principle in the interest of her ambition to be president. I think she's going to find that triangulation and adoption of Republican positions is a taint on future Democratic nominees. Also, any potential candidate supporting Chimpie's "surge strategy" will find his or her prospects skidding asymptotically toward zero by the Iowa primary.

I fear for the dollar, which is losing favor among those dependent on our oil junkie habits and process of denial, and eventually the Chinese will slow their purchase of our debt as a bad investment as we continue to slide into a two-tiered society of ultra-rich and comparatively impoverished citizens. With their credit maxed out, average Americans are going to see that the illusion of affluence bought with plastic is nothing at all like true affluence which derives from receiving interest payments rather than making them. It may get to the point that many Americans will shed the jingoism that has blinded them to their own exploitation and will begin to look upon the social democracies of northern Europe as far better models. "Socialism" as a word will lose its fear power in the mouths of extremist idiots like Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Ann Coulter. Unbridled, unregulated capitalism will not look so good, and although this may hurt libertarianism as an economic model, the libertarians will make large gains because of their morally-neutral and pragmatic stances on social issues.

More later. Gotta go walk the dog, or, rather, the dog is going to walk me.