Friday, August 31, 2007

What's the Point?

I think it's time now to ask:

What Is It That We Want To Accomplish In Iraq?

If we actually want to stop the fighting, establish a government (ahem), get the place quieted down and subdued, it's really quite simple.
Start now! Start drafting young men. Send 'em to boot camp. Send 'em to AIT (Advanced Infantry Training - a jesting term the Army has been using for decades now). Ship 'em to Iraq. We could put 100,000 men (well, boys) a month through the program. Figure eight weeks of boot camp, 6 weeks of AIT, a month or so to ship the troops to Iraq. By this time next year we could have a million soldiers on the ground, easy!
True, they'd mostly be what we used to call cannon fodder, mostly led by what we used to call 90-day wonders. Pretty much the same kind of army that beat the Germans and the Japanese in WW II. What, is the Sadr Militia better equipped, better trained, a more effective force than the German Army? I don't think so!
So, if we really want to 'Win The War Against Terrorism'; and if Iraq is really the place to do that - I see no other choice. Trust me - it would work.
What, you ask me, about the logistics? How can we equip and supply millions of soldiers in a far away place like that? Easy, I reply. Rationing, and commandeer all the shipping! How can it be that we cannot do today what we did in the 1940's? Unless it really isn't that important to do!
So, do we really want to Win The War, or do we want something different?
Is it that what we really is to keep the pot simmering, so to speak, so that we can continue to transfer massive amounts of money from future taxpayers to present-day war profiteers? If that's what we really want, then we should definitely keep doing what we have been doing for the past 5 years. We can keep sending the usual suspects (the saps who volunteer to go to Iraq - time after time after time), at a total body count of something like a thousand per year; easily sustainable forever. We can keep this up, and keep transferring hundreds of billions of dollars a year to the usual 'Contractors'.
It's a beautiful plan. The only problem, from the point of view of G. W. Bush and his faithful sidekicks, is that the suckers appear to be catching on. There are those who think staying in Iraq is a Bad Idea.
Count me among them.
Then there are the Dying Quail Antiwar Politicians. You read about 'em all the time. 'We should leave Iraq' - BUT - 'We can't leave too soon!' Which is, in my opinion, a lotta BS. The Pentagon abets this with many obfuscations detailing the difficulty of 'Extracting' the troops. That's the BS.
Question: How long did it take to go from Kuwait to Baghdad?

That's How Long We Should Give The President and His Generals To Go From Baghdad To Kuwait!

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Work, or Labor?

If you're ever in Newport - no not Newport Beach - Newport - in Oregon. It's the biggest city (well, city... pop. 8,000 or so) on the Oregon Coast. Anyway, If you go down to the waterfront, go ahead and walk past Ripley's Believe It Or Not. Keep going, almost to the end of the road. Where it ends, and there's an intersecting road that goes up the hill. Up the hill to what passes for Downtown Newport (pop. ~8,000). Down near the end of the road, on the waterfront side, you'll come to Newport Shrimp. The biggest fishbuyer in Newport. On the ground floor there's a big picture window. Inside, you can see the big stainless steel table, supplied by conveyor belt with a seemingly endless stream of shrimp. At the table there are a number of workers - dressed almost surgically; apron, gloves, paper cap, mask. There they do their shift sorting shrimp. Sorting them into cagegories. There are 150 ct. shrimp, 120 ct., 80 ct., 50 ct., 30 ct., 15 ct. shrimp. Millions of shrimp- perhaps tens or hundreds of millions of shrimp. At Newport Shrimp the shrimp are landed, unloaded from the boats, 'veined', cooked, sorted, and packed.

At the end of their shift the workers de-garb; de-mask, de-cap, de-glove, de-apron. And then they leave, carrying the aroma of shrimp with them. In ordinary clothing, you can see that they are what in Oregon are called 'Mexicans'. Foreigners. Non-whites. To say that they are a despised minority is to understate the feelings of the more xenophobic of the locals, some of whom like to complain loudly, like Newt Gingrich, that these 'Mexicans' are looting, raping, murdering the good Oregonians.

I never spent a lot of time watching the sorting at Newport Shrimp. I had work of my own to do, and it took no time at all to see that I wouldn't take that job for any amount of money. Not because I don't like money. Simply put, I wouldn't even last one shift at that table.

In the United States we're raised to think of our work as our life, and our life as our work. Career. Job Satisfaction. It's taught by our families, our schools, our peers, our entertainments; everything tells us we need to find satisfaction in our work. With this belief, work such as sorting shrimp, or picking lettuce, or digging ditches, or washing dishes - it all becomes impossible to accept. Incommensurable with our beliefs. The only people who can bear to do such work are those who still have the old notion. Work is for survival, not for satisfaction. Satisfaction comes from family and friends. A circle of friends; something solid and close - not a 'network' of friends; so vague and amorphous.

Simply put; you'll need plain-and-simple workers if you have plain-and-simple work to be done - and you'll have to find them in societies where people still live in extended families, where life satisfaction is not dependent on work, but dependent on family and friends. Where people don't believe work is supposed to be satisfying and fun; where they work for a living, and have fun for fun. Where work is external to life, not integral to it. Where it's still okay to punch a time clock. Where they haven't been taught that work is supposed to be emotionally rewarding.

If you really get rid of the workers who sort the shrimp at the big stainless steel table at Newport Shrimp - you'd better be ready and willing to accept the shrimp shipped to your deli case from China. Because you aren't going to get any shrimp from the inside the closed-border USA. Or Lettuce. Or your yard redesigned. Or service in your local fine restaurant. Don't kid yourself. You wouldn't last a shift on that stainless steel table at Newport Shrimp any more than I could.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Thursday, August 16, 2007

I finally decided to take a chance.

At long last I'm going to try to actually write an actual book - you know; one of those things with a front and a back and a lot of pages in between. However, I think its considered a good thing to put smart-sounding words on the pages. For those who have read extensively in this blog, you probably know not to hold your breath for the final result. On the upside, I have a title (sort of): "The Three Seasons". Yes, I know, it looks a teensie bit derivative. But hey, I'm no Vivaldi, so I didn't think I had a shot at more than 3. It's not musical anyway. It's more about the seasons a fisherman tries to get in while keeping his boat from sinking in the meantime. Here's a snippet from the middle of the Second Season (I figure if I start in the middle, then I can write in both directions, and maybe I can finish in half the time).

... "Chazz, lemme tell you, all this uproar about illegal immigrants. Some people say (and way too loud I think) 'What part about illegal don't you get?' And I guess they're right. Although for the most part, if their folks had the same laws when they came here, they'd be illegals too! Anyways, others say something like 'these illegal workers are here because there's jobs for them here.' I kind of go along with that. How much do those chicken farmers think they'd get if Tyson didn't have illegals to work in those chicken flicking plants of theirs
"Closer to home - how much do you think you're gonna get from Newport Shrimp for that boatload of shrimp you just brought in, if they didn't have any of those 'Mexicans' sorting-veining-cooking-packing the little bugs? Or do you figure you'll do it yourself? And please, don't tell me about how 'those Mexicans' are overrunning us 'native white Oregonians'! ... I'm not that smart, but I do believe those 'Mexicans' are gonna have a tougher time overrunning us native white men than us native white men had overrunning the native red men a couple hundred years ago.
"As for us - hey, we got it good. We're just tuna fishermen. The way it works for me now; I sail on out to the Emperor Seamount or someplace like that, put in, troll around, load up, bring 'em into Newport or someplace. The guys at Newport Shrimp offload 'em for me, then onload the tuna to freezer cars 'n send 'em to the railway. They take 'em to LozAngeles and put 'em on a ship. Ship goes to Samoa; leaves 'em off there. The umm... Samoans (Hey, it's Samoa OK? No Mexicans!) cook-clean-can my tuna. Back onto a ship, back to L.A. Back on the train to Oregon, and right onto the shelves at Meier and Frank. ... Man, that's a long round trip!

"I think from now on, I'll just can my own tuna. Cook my own shrimp too. Less trouble."

"Jesus Frankie, what're you talking about? If these guys hear what you're saying, you're outta here! How you gonna do any business with the locals?"

"I know that Chazz - I'm not about to let any of these asshole locals know what I'm thinking. I know I gotta get along on the docks. Can't let anybody think I'm a liberal! I just like to stir up some shit sometimes."

Now, before I break for the time being, and try to add some readable text front-and-back of the above, here's the long-awaited (or not)

Energy - Part II

Part two of N; Part one is here: ENERGY - PART I. Only today, instead of talking about electrons, we'll be talking about hydrocarbons. Now, hydrocarbons are an important part of the World Of Chemistry. In fact, hydrocarbons are the basis of an entire field of Chemistry know as... Organic Chemistry. Organic Chem, as well as being about hydrocarbons, and hydrocarbon-based compounds, is also the primary reason why a lot of Chemistry students switch to English Lit. Chaucer is easier than the Paraffin Series, which is the easy part of Organic. It's all downhill from there.

Fortunately, aside from the word hydrocarbon, we really don't need to know much more about this stuff. As an aside, it's interesting to note that hydrocarbon compounds actually 'own' many electrons! If we could tease them into giving them up, we'd be able to fill our tanks (well, I mean, the gas tanks in our cars - not the Abrams Tanks in the many war zones we have scattered about the Middle East), and then drive happily about using an electric motor! Sadly, it's not in the nature of the Chemical Bond to give us those electrons without a lot of effort! We have Linus Pauling's word for that, and, knowing that he has not one, but two, Nobel Prizes, you can believe he's smarter than we are! He's also deceased, so the whole idea of megadoses of vitamin C might not be as great as he believed.

But that's another story, as they say.

Now, at this juncture in history, when some of the more-or-less prominent politicians are campaigning for President (these campaigns are so unrelenting, it may well be that the next president has already been elected, and we're getting ready to nominate the candidates for 2012), everybody is talking a lot about how they are about to develop a PLAN! A plan that is, to a.) Save The Planet From Global Warmng or b.) Save The American Driver From Big Oil. Some of the more ambitious politicians are, I believe, trying to work both of those Big Ideas into their ahem, Plan.

Sorry, as my motto says; Good Idea, Too Bad It's Wrong!

The basis for all these wonderful plans is to swap out petroleum as the source for the hydrocarbons going into your (fuel) tank, and to use hydrocarbons from another source. A partial list of these sources: Corn; Sawgrass; Sugarcane; Oil Palms; Used Cooking Oil (from MacD et al.); Methane From Garbage; Methane From Cows (yes, cowfarts!); and that old standby, King Coal. Now, this can all be done. In fact, third world farmers have been using animal byproduct (ahem) as fuel for many centuries. Heck, the West was settled by wagon trains that cooked their way across the plains using Buffalo Chips. That was, of course, before they killed and ate all of the Buffalo.

Problem with all this is, nobody seems to want to consider the scale!

Let us consider the scale: About 500, 000, 000 (1/2 billion!) cars. Maybe more. Heck, there's 260 million cars in the USA alone (see below; Everybody's Getting...). The owners of these cars all want to fill their tanks (the fuel tanks, that is) with hydrocarbons. Aside from some not-entirely-unreasonable fear of engine damage, the car owners really don't give a big rat's ass where the damn hydrocarbons come from. However, the total volume, or weight, of all this fuel is staggering to contemplate! Billions And Billions of Litres! (Borrowing here from famous TV astro-evangelist Carl Sagan). All this stuff gets burned, no matter where it comes from. The burning produces CO2, H2O, CO, Oxides of Nitrogen, Ozone, partially combusted hydrocarbons, and small particulates (soot, actually). The operation also produces Heat, Light, Motion, Dented Fenders, and the occasional Dead Pedestrian.

The problem, actually, is that, given their druthers, most people seem to want to travel about accompanied by something like two tons of assorted metal, plastic, glass, rubber, and a smidgen of other stuff. A car is, emotionally speaking, a sort of cross between a Big, Powerful Destrier (Magnificent Huge Masculine Warlike Stallion, that is), and a Security Blanket (Warm, Soft, Feminine, Peaceful, Comforting, that is). It's quite often not the best way to travel from point A to point B; but What If I Need To Run An Errand? It's also not the healthiest way to travel (See: Everybody's Getting Fat Except...); but What If I Need To Pick Up The Kids? So, what's to be done?

I Don't Know!

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Tuesday, August 07, 2007

I Need to Reconsider


My opinion of President Eisenhower. After all, he is the last United States General to actually win a war! Yes, It's been almost sixty-two years now since the USA has come up a winner. We used to think it was easy; a cinch; with God On Our Side, how could we lose? Well, since 1945 we've lost a few and we've had a couple of stalemates. Zero wins. Unless you want to count Grenada - we sure whacked that teensy island! If you're counting that as a real war, I have to think you're one of those desperate alternate reality neo-con knuckle-draggers.
Right now, it's becoming pretty clear we're managing to lose two, count 'em two wars at the same time! Is this what the DOD meant when they said they had to plan to be able to fight two wars on two fronts simultaneously?
I think the problem might have begun when we started hiring out the actual fighting. Did you hear about the problem with the weapons we sent to Iraq disappearing? Losing track of guns,... Kind of reminds me of just after WW II, when we subbed out the war against Mao and his Communist Army; we kept giving Chiang Kai-Shek more guns, and his soldiers just kept selling them to Mao's army. I guess to get enough money to go home. So much for Unleashing Chiang! Now we're doing the same thing in Iraq. Only now we have troops in the way of the bullets being fired from the guns we've supplied.
Well, anyway, I'm re-evaluating my view of Ike. As the last winning U.S. General, perhaps he was smarter than he looked. Or sounded. Imagine, if you will, if we had generals like we have now back then. Or, if we had a President like we have now back then! Depressing thought huh? I donno if I'd be writing this in German or in Japanese. Probably there'd be fighting going on right now, between Eastern Japan and Western Germany, with the battle line somewhere along the Mississippi River.
As an actual winning General, and a President of some stature (a Plus: he appointed Earl Warren to the Supreme Court- a Minus: he said he thought integration should "go slower").
And, if we are going to say that maybe he knew whereof he spoke, as an actual fighting General, and an actual President, then maybe that last thing he said, you know, about the Military-Industrial Complex is something we should pay (should have paid) attention to. At 460 Billion and counting, it's hard to dispute that the M-I C pretty much gets its own way when it comes to congressional pork. It's probably late in the game to try to start the Pentagon on a diet. The last president tried it, and he had some success, but the dogs of war seem to have returned to feeding on the body politic.

Monday, August 06, 2007

Remember When?

We used to laugh and shake our heads at those crazy Russians - with all those commissars snooping into everybody's business? Now, it seems, we have adopted the same zany and ineffectual concept (Senate Passes Bush Terrorism Spy Bill). Only difference; We are using computers, and technology, and gee-whizz electronic devices!
This assures us of Two Things:
1. You can't find a commissar to bribe to leave you alone.
2. The money spent (read: wasted) on all this spymaster hijinks goes to the profit line of big corporations, rather than to working people.
At least the Rooskies had a full-employment program when it came to snooping!

Sunday, August 05, 2007

I Believe

It is spiritually beneficial to turn off your mobile phone for some period of time each day; this to establish in your mind that your existence as an individual does not depend on an electronic umbilicus to the other members of your tribe.
Although, perhaps it really does (depend on it, that is).

Saturday, August 04, 2007

Kidnapping & Murder

Equals a 15 year jail term! (Oh: also a "Written Reprimand").
Here's the AP story from USMC Station Camp Pendleton, where Sgt. Hutchins and his squad were on trial. In what the Marines refer to as "The Real World", kidnap and murder carry a mandatory death penalty. That is, however, if you kidnap and kill "One Of Us". It's different if you kill a "Raghead". I guess. And don't forget, the Sgt. got busted to Private, and is getting a dishonorable discharge. The people who still like to brag about how we are bringing Democracy to the ignorant benighted people of Iraq will point with pride to the fact that at least we did have a trial. I think that will not cause the Iraqis to strew flowers in our path though.

By THOMAS WATKINS, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 6 minutes ago

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. - A jury sentenced a Marine sergeant Friday to 15 years in prison for the murder of an Iraqi civilian during a fruitless search for an insurgent.
Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III also was dishonorably discharged, reduced in rank to private and given a written reprimand.
Hutchins stood at attention and looked straight ahead as his sentence was announced. He then sat down, briefly put his head on the table in front of him and looked up with red eyes.
His wife, Reyna Hutchins, burst into tears, and other relatives appeared stunned, with his mother slumping in her chair.
On Thursday, Hutchins became the first and only member of an eight-member squad to be convicted of murder in the killing.
He had been charged with premeditated murder, but jurors struck premeditation from the verdict, meaning Hutchins no longer faced a mandatory life sentence.
Testimony from several of his comrades pointed to him as the mastermind of the plot to kidnap and kill a suspected insurgent.
The Iraqi civilian was pulled from his Hamdania home in April 2006 and shot in a hole. An AK-47 and shovel were placed nearby to make him look like an insurgent planting a bomb, according to the prosecution.
Unlike several of his squad mates, Hutchins never expressed remorse, saying he believed he was doing what his superiors wanted.
"I think that had a significant impact on the jury," Hutchins' attorney Rich Brannon said. "We had a tragic mistake, although I think it was command-influenced, and I think it is very difficult emotionally for Larry to deal with that mistake."
Brannon said he would ask Lt. Gen. James Mattis, the commanding general who has jurisdiction over Hutchins, to review the sentence.
Hutchins, of Plymouth, Mass., also was convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, making a false official statement and larceny. He was acquitted of kidnapping, assault and housebreaking.
Testimony showed the victim was kidnapped and killed when the squad couldn't find the suspected insurgent.
Prosecutors previously identified the victim as Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52. The name, however, was dropped from charge sheets.
All eight members of the squad were initially charged with murder and kidnapping.
Four lower-ranking Marines and a Navy corpsman cut deals with prosecutors in exchange for their testimony and received sentences ranging from one to eight years in prison.
Earlier in the day, a separate jury sentenced a Marine corporal to time served and reduced his rank to private for conspiring to murder an Iraqi civilian.
Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, 24, has already served 448 days in custody and was to be freed Friday.
"I was very happy that I got a fair trial," Magincalda said after his sentencing. "I feel really good, and I feel proud to serve as a Marine."
Magincalda was acquitted of murder but found guilty of larceny and housebreaking, and was cleared of making a false official statement.
Magincalda was not accused of firing a shot but was charged for taking part in the plot.
Because the jury did not give him a punitive discharge, Magincalda will retain military benefits, including treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression that his psychiatrist testified was triggered by three combat tours and confinement in the brig.
He said he wants to re-enlist in the Marine Corps. If he is rejected, he said, he will join his family in Manteca to help his father run a ranch.
The Marine said he'd had a difficult time in the brig, which he referred to as the "Camp Pendleton Hotel," but had received a lot of support from the public.
"It's been a horrible experience out there; I haven't felt good," Magincalda said. "All the support I received ... that kept me going."
Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said Magincalda's sentence would be seen by many as a light one.
"People around the world and people in Iraq will be monitoring these kinds of trials to see if what they regard as justice is being done," Hooper said.
"If there is a perception that our soldiers can commit these crimes and only get a slap on the wrist, that's not going to send a very good message," he said.
A jury last month acquitted another corporal of murder but convicted him of conspiracy to commit murder and kidnapping. According to testimony, Cpl. Trent Thomas of Madison, Ill., had greater involvement in the killing than Magincalda. Thomas was sentenced to a reduction in rank and a bad-conduct discharge but no prison time.
The squad was pulled from the battlefield after the slaying