It looks like the bedpan for the Jolly Green Giant.
The "Space Edsel"? "Where Your Taxpayer Dollars Go Down the Drain"?
Doesn't anybody not connected with stuff like this take a look before the design is released?
Thursday, September 6, 2007
To Boldly Go Where No One Has Gone Before
Take a look at the design of Spaceport America.
It looks like the bedpan for the Jolly Green Giant.
The "Space Edsel"? "Where Your Taxpayer Dollars Go Down the Drain"?
Doesn't anybody not connected with stuff like this take a look before the design is released?
It looks like the bedpan for the Jolly Green Giant.
The "Space Edsel"? "Where Your Taxpayer Dollars Go Down the Drain"?
Doesn't anybody not connected with stuff like this take a look before the design is released?
Bremer Fights Back
The Bushies have been blaming L. Paul Bremer, the Procounsel Head of the Coalition Provisional Authority, for unilaterally deciding to disband the old Iraqi Army.
Too bad for them that Bremer will not accept the blame. Seems Bremer made notes and kept them.
Too bad for them that Bremer will not accept the blame. Seems Bremer made notes and kept them.
Why Iraq is Doomed
I think Iraq is well and truly screwed and this rests on the shoulders of one man and one man alone: George W. Bush.
One of the bedrock principles in fixing any problem is this: First, recognize that there is a problem. If your car or a machine in a factory is not working correctly, you cannot do anything about it until the problem is recognized. If the discussion goes like this: "What's that noise?" "Oh, it always sounds like that," or "Why is it doing that?" "It always does that," then you have a problem and it is not with the machine. The problem is with the operator of the mechanic.
And so it is here. There may not be enough people left in this country who think Iraq is going well to fill out a poker game, but the first guy to pull out a chair and sit down at the game will be George W. Bush. Someone who does not recognize that there is a problem cannot be trusted to fix the problem. Someone who does not recognize there is a problem in the fifth year of a war that was supposed to be over in six weeks or six months is either obstinate or retarded or maybe a mixture of both.
There may be a number of things that can be done to fix Iraq. But nobody is going to step up and help out a man who thinks that everything is going swimmingly. Nobody is going to help a man who has made a glaring mistake and is pretending, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, that things are on track. Nobody is going to trust a guy who is saying "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes."
Nobody is going to help out a guy who is as stubborn as a mule and who is showing all of the smarts of a mud fence.
If George W. Bush had a shred of integrity or any understanding of what it meant to be an adult, he would stand up, acknowledge that he screwed the pooch and ask for help. But that is never going to happen. George W. Bush is just a shiftless rich kid who had a string of high-paying no-show do-nothing jobs in his life, a man whose daddy's buddies bailed him out of every mess he got into. He clearly viewed the presidency as another no-show job where the real work would be done by his staff and their work would be overseen by people who had worked for his father.
We need to get someone in the job who does not have his or her ego bound up in this war. We need someone who has the personal integrity to take a hard look at what is going on and ask for help.
That person is not and will never be George W. Bush.
One of the bedrock principles in fixing any problem is this: First, recognize that there is a problem. If your car or a machine in a factory is not working correctly, you cannot do anything about it until the problem is recognized. If the discussion goes like this: "What's that noise?" "Oh, it always sounds like that," or "Why is it doing that?" "It always does that," then you have a problem and it is not with the machine. The problem is with the operator of the mechanic.
And so it is here. There may not be enough people left in this country who think Iraq is going well to fill out a poker game, but the first guy to pull out a chair and sit down at the game will be George W. Bush. Someone who does not recognize that there is a problem cannot be trusted to fix the problem. Someone who does not recognize there is a problem in the fifth year of a war that was supposed to be over in six weeks or six months is either obstinate or retarded or maybe a mixture of both.
There may be a number of things that can be done to fix Iraq. But nobody is going to step up and help out a man who thinks that everything is going swimmingly. Nobody is going to help a man who has made a glaring mistake and is pretending, in the face of all the evidence to the contrary, that things are on track. Nobody is going to trust a guy who is saying "who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes."
Nobody is going to help out a guy who is as stubborn as a mule and who is showing all of the smarts of a mud fence.
If George W. Bush had a shred of integrity or any understanding of what it meant to be an adult, he would stand up, acknowledge that he screwed the pooch and ask for help. But that is never going to happen. George W. Bush is just a shiftless rich kid who had a string of high-paying no-show do-nothing jobs in his life, a man whose daddy's buddies bailed him out of every mess he got into. He clearly viewed the presidency as another no-show job where the real work would be done by his staff and their work would be overseen by people who had worked for his father.
We need to get someone in the job who does not have his or her ego bound up in this war. We need someone who has the personal integrity to take a hard look at what is going on and ask for help.
That person is not and will never be George W. Bush.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
More Lies, More Than Likely
Maybe you saw this one about a B-52 carrying nukes flew across the country and how it was just a huge screwup.
I am not buying it. Not for a second.
What I know about the handling and transportation of nuclear weapons is rather old, but I feel comfortable in stating this: The procedures were incredibly tight. Compared to nuclear weapons handling protocols, the transportation of large amounts of cash is done by drunken Keystone Kops.
Nuclear weapons do not move around "by accident".
On the other hand, I suppose I ought to keep in mind he guiding rule of: "Never explain by cupidity that which can be explained by stupidity."
Nah. I still don't buy it.
I am not buying it. Not for a second.
What I know about the handling and transportation of nuclear weapons is rather old, but I feel comfortable in stating this: The procedures were incredibly tight. Compared to nuclear weapons handling protocols, the transportation of large amounts of cash is done by drunken Keystone Kops.
Nuclear weapons do not move around "by accident".
On the other hand, I suppose I ought to keep in mind he guiding rule of: "Never explain by cupidity that which can be explained by stupidity."
Nah. I still don't buy it.
GAO 1, DoD 0
Even as the Bushies and the flacks in the Pentagon tout their "successes" in Iraq, turns out that according to the Government Accountability Office, the people whose job it is to fact-check the rest of government, it isn't necessarily so.
Attacks on civilians are not down.
Up to 100,000 Iraqis a month are fleeing their homes to escape the violence.
This is what to expect from the report by the Bush Administration this month, and I will tell you what to expect by telling you an old Jewish folk story:
---------------------------------------------------
On day, an officer in the Czar's Army passed through a village. Suddenly he stopped his horse, for he saw on the side of a barn one hundred circles drawn in chalk and in the center of each circle, was a bullet hole.
"Who is this incredible marksman," cried the officer. "Who can shoot one hundred perfect bull's eyes without missing a single one? I must meet him! I want him in my unit!"
Just then a child happened to walk by and said "Oh, that's just Shepsel. He's the town fool."
"I don't care if he is a fool," said the officer. "If someone can shoot one hundred perfect bull's eyes, I want him to join the Army and serve in my unit. None of my soldiers can match him."
"No, you don't understand," said the boy, "Shepsel, he shoots first, and then he draws the circles."
----------------------------------------------------
Watch and see what the Bush Administration claims as "success" in Iraq. And you will see that they are drawing circles around the bullet holes.
Attacks on civilians are not down.
Up to 100,000 Iraqis a month are fleeing their homes to escape the violence.
This is what to expect from the report by the Bush Administration this month, and I will tell you what to expect by telling you an old Jewish folk story:
---------------------------------------------------
On day, an officer in the Czar's Army passed through a village. Suddenly he stopped his horse, for he saw on the side of a barn one hundred circles drawn in chalk and in the center of each circle, was a bullet hole.
"Who is this incredible marksman," cried the officer. "Who can shoot one hundred perfect bull's eyes without missing a single one? I must meet him! I want him in my unit!"
Just then a child happened to walk by and said "Oh, that's just Shepsel. He's the town fool."
"I don't care if he is a fool," said the officer. "If someone can shoot one hundred perfect bull's eyes, I want him to join the Army and serve in my unit. None of my soldiers can match him."
"No, you don't understand," said the boy, "Shepsel, he shoots first, and then he draws the circles."
----------------------------------------------------
Watch and see what the Bush Administration claims as "success" in Iraq. And you will see that they are drawing circles around the bullet holes.
"Combat, Hell!"
Some time ago, I was hanging out in a bar. A kid was in there who had been on a Navy ship or sub which was operating in support of Operation Something-or-Other. The ship or sub had fired Tomahawk missiles at some target on shore. The kid was boasting about being in "combat." Some gray-haired guy in his late 50s asked him what opposition his ship/boat had faced. The kid said none. The older guy snorted derisively and a couple other guys his age or older snickered.
Those guys were Vietnam veterans. Odds are that they saw combat, in that they knew what it was like to be shot at.
I think they had the right of it. The kid's "combat" operations were probably less dangerous than any other day on the job for him.
Every once in awhile, you may read or see a story about Predator drones. Predator drones are controlled by "pilots" (they call them that) and they are "piloted" from a base in Neavada by satellite links. They fly around Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and on occasion, the drones shoot missiles at people or things. The Air Farce considers them to be "combat" missions.
That's not combat. That's not even as dangerous to the "pilots" as opening day of whitetail deer season is in most eastern states. The biggest risk those "pilots" face is getting in a car crash while commuting to work.
(And, while not the subject of this rant, real pilots are up in the airplanes they fly. People who sit on the ground and fly airplanes by remote control are "operators." They are no more pilots than some kid who is good at FS`02.)
Now I'm not as big a throwback as the character Mulay Ahmed Muhamed Raisuli the Magnificent was in "The Wind and the Lion," but I think John Milius was onto something when he wrote these lines:
"I prefer to fight the European armies, but they do not fight as men - they fight as dogs! Men prefer to fight with swords, so they can see each other's eyes! Sometimes, this is not possible. Then, they fight with rifles. The Europeans have guns that fire many times promiscuously and rend the Earth. There is no honor in this - nothing is decided from this."
I am not a romantic about war. There is nothing romantic about killing people and about having the young men (and now women) of your nation come home maimed or dead. There is nothing romantic about burning cities to the ground or sinking ships. I've known a lot of guys who came home from Vietnam just fine, I've known a few who came home without a scratch on them, other than the terrible damage done to their psyches. I've seen the holes in families who had loved ones go off to wars, from World War I to Vietnam, and not had them come back.
War is terrible. War should never be easy. War should not be fought from a computer terminal or an air-conditioned office in Nevada. That is not war, that is not combat. That is not even hunting.
If I could make one edict stick for the planet, I would not outlaw war, for there is something deep within primates, especially the hairless ones, which makes them prone to killing each other.
What I would outlaw is indirect fire weapons. No long-range artillery, no missiles, no drones. If you are going to engage in the business of killing people, you have to be close enough to see them.
Killing people should be more than just a day at a job, where after your shift, you can have a swim and then catch a show at the casino. That's not war, that's technological inhumanity.
Those guys were Vietnam veterans. Odds are that they saw combat, in that they knew what it was like to be shot at.
I think they had the right of it. The kid's "combat" operations were probably less dangerous than any other day on the job for him.
Every once in awhile, you may read or see a story about Predator drones. Predator drones are controlled by "pilots" (they call them that) and they are "piloted" from a base in Neavada by satellite links. They fly around Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and on occasion, the drones shoot missiles at people or things. The Air Farce considers them to be "combat" missions.
That's not combat. That's not even as dangerous to the "pilots" as opening day of whitetail deer season is in most eastern states. The biggest risk those "pilots" face is getting in a car crash while commuting to work.
(And, while not the subject of this rant, real pilots are up in the airplanes they fly. People who sit on the ground and fly airplanes by remote control are "operators." They are no more pilots than some kid who is good at FS`02.)
Now I'm not as big a throwback as the character Mulay Ahmed Muhamed Raisuli the Magnificent was in "The Wind and the Lion," but I think John Milius was onto something when he wrote these lines:
"I prefer to fight the European armies, but they do not fight as men - they fight as dogs! Men prefer to fight with swords, so they can see each other's eyes! Sometimes, this is not possible. Then, they fight with rifles. The Europeans have guns that fire many times promiscuously and rend the Earth. There is no honor in this - nothing is decided from this."
I am not a romantic about war. There is nothing romantic about killing people and about having the young men (and now women) of your nation come home maimed or dead. There is nothing romantic about burning cities to the ground or sinking ships. I've known a lot of guys who came home from Vietnam just fine, I've known a few who came home without a scratch on them, other than the terrible damage done to their psyches. I've seen the holes in families who had loved ones go off to wars, from World War I to Vietnam, and not had them come back.
War is terrible. War should never be easy. War should not be fought from a computer terminal or an air-conditioned office in Nevada. That is not war, that is not combat. That is not even hunting.
If I could make one edict stick for the planet, I would not outlaw war, for there is something deep within primates, especially the hairless ones, which makes them prone to killing each other.
What I would outlaw is indirect fire weapons. No long-range artillery, no missiles, no drones. If you are going to engage in the business of killing people, you have to be close enough to see them.
Killing people should be more than just a day at a job, where after your shift, you can have a swim and then catch a show at the casino. That's not war, that's technological inhumanity.
Putting Mechanics Out of Work
I am not making this up:
Nepal Airlines fixed a problem with an airliner by sacrificing two goats.
(And if all of a sudden you start seeing reports of goats being herded into the White House Situation Room, then you might have an idea what is going on.)
Nepal Airlines fixed a problem with an airliner by sacrificing two goats.
(And if all of a sudden you start seeing reports of goats being herded into the White House Situation Room, then you might have an idea what is going on.)
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