Amature Hour In The UK

While the US (and no doubt the UK) media are now in a full feeding frenzy, it should be clear to everyone that the 'terror attacks' in London and Glasgow were highly amateurish.

For starters, gasoline is not a high explosive. If we were talking 50 pounds of Semtex or the Al Qaeda standby, TATP, I would be impressed. Those are real high explosives with a detonation rate in excess of 20,000 feet per second. Gasoline can explode (just ask former owners of a Ford Pinto) but it is first and foremost an incendiary. If the initial reports are true, the clown driving the Mercedes was a rank amateur when it comes to constructing an Improvised Explosive Device aka IED. Unlike a Hollywood flick the 50 gallons of gas would not have shredded the Mercedes into lethal chunks of flying shrapenal.

The fact that "officers courageously disabled the trigger by hand" coupled with the report of the smoke in the car leads me to believe that the mad London "bomber" tried to construct a Molotov cocktail of sorts and lit a cloth fuze. Fortunately he left the windows in the car up and there was not enough oxygen to really get the fire going. Looks like the brave British police reached in and snuffed the flame.

Judging from the overreaction to this non-incident I think we can safely conclude that Osama Bin Laden will remain holed up in Pakistan and let the fear mongers at CNN, MSNBC, and FOX do the dirty business of scaring the shit out of people.

While they had the potential to some light damage, it is clear that raw anger and desperation, not professional calculation and terrorist training fueled these attempts at terror.

It should also be clear that these attacks are not being driven so much by the ideology of Bin Laden and radical Islam, but anger at the ideology of Tony Blair (and George Bush). Their incredible stupid and fouled up attempts at reducing terror has only grown it, both abroad, and at home.

My only real concern about these type of terrorist (and calling them terrorist is an insult to terrorist {if you can insult a terrorist}) is one day, a group like these idiots in Scotland, or the foolish saps who dreamed of attacking Ft. Dix, or the lost souls who formed their own religion and army in Miami (or the JFK crew), may get 'lucky' and do damage far beyond what they are actually capable of.

1 Mild Dirty Word, and

Mingle² - Online Dating

Abject Failure, Again

The current administration, and our leaders in the Pentagon, have again been proven to be total failures.

BAQOUBA, Iraq (AP) -- The U.S. commander of a new offensive north of Baghdad, reclaiming insurgent territory day by day, said Sunday his Iraqi partners may be too weak to hold onto the gains.

The Iraqi military does not even have enough ammunition, said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek: "They're not quite up to the job yet."

His counterpart south of Baghdad seemed to agree, saying U.S. troops are too few to garrison the districts newly rid of insurgents. "It can't be coalition (U.S.) forces. We have what we have. There's got to be more Iraqi security forces," said Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch.

If the Iraqi army is unable to hold the territory, and we lack the manpower to hold the territory, why are we bothering with this farce of an escalation?

Are our Political leaders so stupid that they do not understand that this is a huge waste? of course they are this stupid, this is George Bush and his cohorts we are talking about.

Are our military leaders now so spineless they lack the courage to tell the politicians in DC the results of their idiocy? It appears that they are.

What is the result of this latest display of criminal stupidity, and craven fear?

At least 12 soldiers were killed on Saturday from roadside bombings and other causes, leaving at least 31 dead for the week.

Reflection On Past Decisions, And Iraq Today

Almost 30 years ago, a nation in the middle east (OK, South Asia) was in in disarray, suffering from internal divisions, political murders, coups, and open warfare. A Superpower saw this as an opportunity, and Russia sent 80,000 men into the country to 'stabilize' it and to tie it securely into it's sphere of influence.

The locals were not amused, and the unrest continued, and in places grew much worse.

Soon the number of troops rose to about 150,000, and still the resistance grew stronger.

The US saw an opportunity. We could destabilize the southern border of our enemy, and tie down a sizable fraction of our biggest foe's army in a manner very similar to what happened to us in the 60s in Vietnam. So in July 1979 Jimmy Carter ordered the initial aid to the 'freedom fighters' of Afghanistan.

When Regan took power in 80s, the aid was continued, and by the mid 80s it was not a trickle, but a flood. Russia was trapped in it's own Vietnam, and faced many of the same difficulties we saw in the 67-73 period. Eventually Russia left, and Afghanistan was left to fight a continuing civil war that was eventually won by their religious right, the Taliban.

This group was an immediate international pariah, a supporter of international terrorism and became the eventual protector of Al Qaeda.

Another by-product of this war was the training and eventual dispersion of as many as 40,000 mujaheddin. During the war years, the lure of battle for a just cause, and the funds and tools to wage war attracted tens of thousands of fighters from across the whole of the Islamic world. They were trained by the US (by proxy at least) and bloodied in battle, and when it was over, they moved on.

There is little doubt that some of these very same US trained fighters are now involved in Iraq.

All of this as a result of a decision to stick it to the Russians. Our goal was not a terrorist supporting fundamentalist Islamic government in control of Afghanistan, our goal was not to train tens of thousands of mujaheddin, and then disperse them across the globe, our goal was not the elevation of Bin Laden and Al Qaeda to the point where the world knew who he was, but that was the end result.

That is why I have to ask, have we thought the wisdom of arming Sunni freedom fighters.

these groups have been provided, usually through Iraqi military units allied with the Americans, with arms, ammunition, cash, fuel and other supplies.

American officials who have engaged in what they call "outreach" to the Sunni groups say the groups are mostly ones with links to Al Qaeda but are disillusioned with Al Qaeda's extremist tactics, particularly suicide bombings that have killed thousands of Iraqi civilians. In exchange for American backing, these officials say, the Sunni groups have agreed to fight Al Qaeda and halt attacks on American units.

Commanders involved in these negotiations say that in some cases, Sunni groups have agreed to alert U.S. troops to the location of roadside bombs and other lethal booby traps.

This clearly show just how bad the current situation in Iraq is. We are arming the very people that we have spent the last 5 years trying to kill. In our effort to find a path to victory, we are now forced to making very dangerous alliances and aiding uncontrollable groups. The forces we are arming are not part of the government, not part of the Iraqi army, they are fighting the Iraqi government as it currently exist. These are the armies of the Sunni population who are already at war with the Shia population, who happen to control the government at this time.

critics of the strategy, including some U.S. officers, say it could amount to the Americans arming both sides in a future civil war.

This may work, desperate situations call for bold action, but I fear that the law of unintended consequences will lead us to look back on this decision, and wish we had not chosen this path.

Ravelel Shows Us How To Keep Those

Bank accounts and campaign coffers full, start trafficking in drugs.

South Carolina Treasurer Thomas Ravenel has been suspended from office, following his indictment by a federal grand jury for distribution of cocaine.

He is innocent till proven guilty, but, a federal indictment is a very serious step.

Sen. Graham (R-SC)

gets a little attition from Firedoglake.

They make a very good point. For a man who is said to have no ambition for a higher office, he sure gets a lot of face time with the national media.

Badtux

makes a great point.

Paris Hilton is America. Where once America was steelworkers and freedom fighters, today America is... Paris. Vacant empty-headed useless people with no conception of "reality", who mostly spend their days selling things nobody needs to people who don't need them but hey, they're neat things, so buy, buy, buy!

Gallup Confirms, The Majority Of Republicans

Are idiots.

The majority of Republicans in the United States do not believe the theory of evolution is true and do not believe that humans evolved over millions of years from less advanced forms of life.

This is a great debate to follow, and regular visits to science blogs, like pharyngula, make it fun and easy to learn.

PS

The overwhelming stupidity of theist republicans also extends to US History

Jefferson (D-La) To Be Indicted

All I can say is what took so freakin long.

A Justice Department official familiar with the case said the indictment outlining the evidence against Jefferson is more than an inch thick and charges the congressman with crimes that could keep him in prison for up to 200 years. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the case.

Bush Administration Starts to Admit

They want us to stay in Iraq for ever.

For the first time, the Bush administration is beginning publicly to discuss basing American troops in Iraq for years, even decades to come

This should be a surprise to no one.

In other news from Iraq, after the first 3 days of June, at least14 more US troops have been killed

New Blog On The Roll

Visit Outloud In South Carolina

DeMint, He Opens His Mouth

And a flood of stupidity follows.

His latest attempt at public speaking has a couple of choice moments.

“Al-Qaida knows that we’ve got a lot of wimps in Congress,” DeMint said. “I believe a lot of the casualties can be laid at the feet of all the talk in Congress about how we’ve got to get out, we’ve got to cut and run.”

A few notes for Sen. DeMint.

Al Quade makes up only a very small percentage of the forces involved in fighting against the US in Iraq (and would not even be in Iraq if we had not gone in there). The vast majority of those involved in attacking US forces are Iraqi. These people will continue to fight us until they are totally defeated, something that almost never happens with domestic insurgency.

They are responding to an invasion of their land like I hope Americans would respond to an invasion of the US, with massive resistance. In the US this resistance would not stop based upon the political discussions of the invaders, but only when the invaders were either kicked out, or had killed such a massive amount amount of our population that resistance was no longer an option.

We face the same reality in Iraq.

The sad truth is, they want us out of the way so they can get busy killing each other. Iraq is a land divided by religious, ethnic and family divides, and grudges held onto from the past. These will define their existence for the next few decades if not longer. Our staying in Iraq just delays the now unavoidable.

All you do by demanding that we remain in Iraq is assure the deaths of more of our troops. The Democrats are trying to save some troops, it is you Sen. DeMint who are killing them.

Not only did Sen DeMint display his stupidity while in Spartanburg, He also confirmed that he is very accomplished at spinning a lie.

DeMint also took issue with the now widespread belief that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction, saying the executed Iraqi dictator had “stockpiles of chemical weapons” that still exist.

Yes Saddam has some very old, scattered, most likely forgotten, shells that did at one time contain deadly toxins. These are left over from their war with Iran (you know, back when we were allied with them, and were helping with their chemical weapons programs). As chemical weapons, these shells are basically useless. The chemicals have degraded, and are not much of a threat. In fact a couple have been used in IEDs (most likely by accident), and the damage was very limited.

These are not the 'stockpiles' but leftovers, and posed no real threat to our nation.

Stupid, and a bad liar, no wonder so many love to call the Jr. Senator from South Carolina Sen DimWit.


Tags
DeMint

Well, She Was Covert

That is again made perfectly clear.

An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame's employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was "covert" when her name became public in July 2003.

I would hope that the small army of right wing nuts cases who kept trying to claim she was not covert would now have the grace and manners to both apologize the the Plames. and the people of the US, and then demand the proper punishment for the traitors who outed a covert US spy (you know, Bush, Cheney, Libby etc).

But I wont hold my breath. Past experience has shown that vast majority of those who make up the right wing noise machine lack both the courage and wisdom to do the right thing.

Terrorist Attack Thwarted in Virginia

It appears they have followed us here.

Campbell County authorities arrested a Liberty University student for having several homemade bombs in his car.

The student, 19-year-old Mark D. Uhl of Amissville, Va., reportedly told authorities that he was making the bombs to stop protesters from disrupting the funeral service. The devices were made of a combination of gasoline and detergent

....

Three other suspects are being sought, one of whom is a soldier from Fort Benning, Ga., and another is a high school student.

Ooopppps

It appears that these terrorist were already here. I wonder if the right wing wack jobs are going to flip out like they did about the Miami and Ft. Dix groups (who do not appear to have been this close to making an attack).

Evolution or Fantasy

Not Very Bright has started a survey, and the results, while not surprising, are very disappointing.

It should be no surprise that a parade of Not Very Bright people are in charge of South Carolina. I suspect an average IQ of about 69 (Intellectually Deficient) could be found in the creationsim subset in the survey.

Dr. Laura's New Difficulties

(At least she is not naked this time)

As a media product, She has been in decline for a while now. It appears that the behavior of her sole reason for being (her Son) may, if true, speed up her disappearance from the American media scene.

The soldier son of talk radio relationship counselor Laura Schlessinger is under investigation for a graphic personal Web page that one Army official has called "repulsive."

Unfortunately as well as being repulsive, it is also similar to many other such projects that have been produced by members of our armed forces, who, a recent study suggest, think torture is a fine idea.

It is alarming what four years of lies and pointless warfare is producing.

Fawell's Dead

And when you can't say something nice, you should say nothing at all so I will hush.




Other voices

I can say with a clean conscious that one of the great leaders of intolerance and promoters of illogical thinking is dead at age 73.

the reality is that he was a shameless liar, a demagogue and a driving force for a variety of anti-liberty causes.

Over his long career as a vile televangelist building an empire of bigotry from the donations of poor people, Falwell has supported South African apartheid, called AIDS an invention of Jesus to punish gays, attacked Martin Luther King and U.S. civil rights, and blamed 9/11 on feminists and homosexuals.

we can all take solace in the fact that the extinction of the televangelist was all part of god's loving plan.


Hell, serving one.

"Every good Christian ought to kick Falwell right in the ass."

It's difficult to be charitable when acknowledging the passing of someone whose life's work you despised.

Sen. DeMint and RU-486

South Carolina's Junior Senator's war on RU-486 continues. It should come to no surprise to anyone that in this ongoing effort, The Senator (or his staff) continue to use misinformation (A classy term for subtle lies) in their effort to support their case.

There is an excellent quick review at The Well-Timed Period, where some real facts are introduced.

While the DeMint press release is chocked full of half truths and misapplied stats, the one that I find most interesting is the whole last paragraph.

The reported risk of death associated with RU-486 is ten times greater the risk associated with surgical abortions. The death rate associated with surgical abortion is one in a million. By contrast, the reported risk of death associated with RU-486 is higher than one in 100,000

.

It appears that the fine folks in DeMints office decided to quote the numbers that best helped their case, while ignoring the rest.

Lets start with the RU-486 mortality number, there is still study needed here, and some of the adverse effects appear to come from improper use of the meds, but even then, the real number is about 1 in 110,000 (not less than 100,00 are DeMint claims). As for regular abortions, well on the whole, they are 1 in 1 in 142,000 ( not 1 in 1,000,000 ).... and there is one other fact that his office left off the memo that is very telling: The risk of death in pregnancy is 1 in 8700. Making it a far riskier proposition than either RU-486, or surgical abortion.

Yet, somehow, that little fact is not mentioned at all.

No wonder so many people in SC prefer his nickname when refering to him, Sen. DimWit.


hat tip to pharyngula

Mom Always Wanted A Dr. In The Family

MD... or PHd... it didn't matter

You Are Dr. Bunsen Honeydew

You take the title "mad scientist" to the extreme -with very scary things coming out of your lab. And you've invented some pretty cool things, from a banana sharpener to a robot politician. But while you're busy turning gold into cottage cheese, you need to watch out for poor little Beaker! "Oh, that's very naughty, Beaker! Now you eat these paper clips this minute."

The Muppet Personality Test

28%

I thought only serial rapist and televangelist could have approvial ratings this low.

George W. Bush now has the worst approval rating of an American president in a generation

A New Blog To Follow

Denialism

If they stay true to their stated goal, they should be a great asset to all of those of us who cherish truth.

Bush Block Funding For The Troops

That would be a valid statement if I was trying to spin the war funding debate the way the Bush White House has been trying to spin it. Since I am not, so I guess I will retract it.

But back to the main point, Bush has vetoed the democratic version of the supplemental spending bill that would fully fund Bush's war in Iraq.

What is interesting about this whole Iraq funding mess is: The democrats fully funded Bush's request, no quibbling at all. The only progress markers the Democrats included in the bill are the ones Bush himself outlined, no additional demands at all. The only thing that is purely democratic in orgin is the timeline, and that is at the demand of the American people who voted them into power.

Bush's biggest complaint seems to be that the Democrats took him seriously when he outlined the steps that the Iraqi government needed to take to move forward.

So we are back to the starting point, and at this time I can see only 3 real options presented.

1. Follow the Bush - McCain plan, and play Wack-A-Mole in Iraq for the next couple of generations.

2. Do the job right. Find 600,000 to 750,000 trained and armed troops, find a spare 500,000,000.00 a year to fund it, then move into Iraq a force that can impose some form of peace

3. Get the heck out of dodge.

And remember, if you pick option 1, at some point in time you will still have to pick either 2 or 3.

This is a fact, that is obvious to so many, is something that the Bush administration refuses to address.

The BBC Goes Where American Media Dare Not

They actually bother to look at Baghdad and tell you what is going on.

Trying to get into the centre of Baghdad earlier this week offered one view of how far away the Americans and Iraqi authorities are from gaining control here. We were at the airport. Just before we were due to leave, the entrance car park was hit by a car bomb.

...

While we waited with scores of other vehicles, mortars were fired at the airport.

...

You won't have heard about any of this because at the same time a series of other far more serious attacks was taking place. One was at the Sadriya market in the city centre, where a massive car bomb killed more than 140 people.

...

As we drove into the city, we counted six blast holes left by recent roadside bombs along just one 100-metre stretch or road. A large patch of damaged, blackened Tarmac on a bridge spoke of another attempt to destroy a key crossing.

...

Last month alone there were more than 100 car bombings, and the number of attacks has continued at a similar rate so far this month.

Abstinence Only Fails

Not that this should surprise anyone who has any ability to think. Just say no has been an abject failure in every venue it has been rolled out into. What may be surprising is that this first study indicates that the hundreds of millions that have been spend on telling kids to just say no to sex has had, what amounts to, absolutely no impact on teen sexual activity.

Students who participated in sexual abstinence programs were just as likely to have sex a few years later as those who did not

...

those who attended one of the four abstinence classes reviewed reported having similar numbers of sexual partners as those who did not attend the classes, and they first had sex at about the same age as their control group counterparts — 14 years and nine months

just as likely to have sex, similar numbers of sexual partners, first had sex at about the same age... all for the low, low price of $175,000,000 a year. I wonder if we can get a full refund from all the right wing sexual snake oil sales people who have been able to use the Bush administration to rob the American public.

A Life Well Led

Kurt Vonnegut has died

More Guard Off To War

The combat escalation in Iraq is stretching the military so thin, that they are having to dip into guard forces again.

Coming on the heels of a controversial “surge” of 21,000 U.S. troops that has stretched the Army thin, the Defense Department is preparing to send an additional 12,000 National Guard combat forces to Iraq and Afghanistan

Let's just hope that they are treated better than Matthew Zeimer.

One of the soldiers died just hours after arriving in Iraq -- and was one of those troops rushed to the country in the "surge" who did not receive full training.

....

On February 9, the Savannah (Ga.) Morning News reported: "At least 143 soldiers joined Fort Stewart's 1st Brigade too late to participate in a final combat exercise before their units deployed to Iraq. Last week, one of those soldiers - Pvt. Matthew T. Zeimer, 18 - was the first from the brigade to be killed when he was hit by enemy fire in Ramadi, the stronghold of Iraq's Sunni insurgency.

"Zeimer arrived at Fort Stewart on Dec. 18 after basic training and deployed to Iraq just a few weeks later. He missed the brigade's intensive four-week mission rehearsal in October when more than 1,300 trainers and Iraqi role-players came to the post as part of the most realistic training program the Army offers for Iraq operations.

It's Official, The Escalation Will Fail

I say this not because of the obvious weakness in the plan, or the overall inability of the US armed forces to do the job (we lack the manpower), but because Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, at the urging of Bush's pal Ahmad Chalabi, has decided that he likes the Civil War and wants it to continue.

The most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq has rejected an American-backed proposal to allow thousands of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party to return to government service, an aide to the cleric said Monday. The rejection by the cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, appears certain to fuel hostility between the majority Shiites and the former ruling Sunni Arabs, since many Sunni Arabs say they were unfairly purged from the government in the clampdown on the Baath Party.

And as long as Sistani wants civil war, there will be civil war.

John McCain, A Bad Liar or Simply Delusional?

On CNN, Sen. John McCain (R-Az) was busy singing the praises of the escalation of the war in Iraq, and claiming that we have made amazing progress. The trouble is, his claims were so absurd that you either have to admire his willingness to lie so boldly, or wonder how we could let someone so delusional roam the streets without adult supervision.

Remember - Wack A Mole

We have liberated and secured Tal Afaf 3 times now, and despite our efforts in the last couple of days we have seen, both bombings, followed by what appear to be reprisal killings where Shiia police members have executed Sunni civilians.

When you here politicians singing the praises of our escalation of combat in Baghdad, remember Tal Afar, and what Bush said a year ago after the 3rd 'freeing' of the city.

So today I'd like to share a concrete example of progress in Iraq that most Americans do not see every day in their newspapers and on their television screens. I'm going to tell you the story of a northern Iraqi city called Tal Afar, which was once a key base of operations for al Qaeda and is today a free city that gives reason for hope for a free Iraq.

Progress, as defined by the Republicans in DC, sure looks like failure to me.

Remember The Iraqi Death Survey

Published in the Lancet?

The Bush administration was quick to denounce it, but the higher-ups in the UK were clearly impressed by the work.

But a memo by the MoD's Chief Scientific Adviser, Sir Roy Anderson, on 13 October, states: "The study design is robust and employs methods that are regarded as close to "best practice" in this area, given the difficulties of data collection and verification in the present circumstances in Iraq."

...

In the same e-mail the official later writes: "However, the survey methodology used here cannot be rubbished, it is a tried and tested way of measuring mortality in conflict zones."

When it comes to anything scientific, the Bush administration denounces anything they don't like, even when the science is valid.